Yet, mad I am not
by Erisah Mae
Summary: ...and very surely I do not dream"- Poe. Uchiha Itachi died. Then he woke up chained in a cell, in a Sound stronghold. Having fought his way free, he encounters some people he knew were dead, and some who when previously met have tried to kill him on sight, but now show concern. Is this an elaborate genjutsu? Or something else?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I play in this universe at times, but I don't own anything you recognise.

...

Chapter 1: A rude awakening

When Itachi woke up, he was chained to a wall.

This confused Itachi.

Less because he was chained to a wall (although that was not exactly something Itachi had much experience with, funny thing, being _extremely good _at being a ninja tended to limit one's experience with being detained) and more because he had woken up.

The last thing he remembered before waking up had been Sasuke's face, feeling himself succumb to chakra exhaustion and the disease that had been slowly eating him away for years. He remembered asking his little brother to forgive him.

He also remembered being somewhat disappointed that he was literally going to drop dead from a terminal illness rather than going out the way he had wanted, with Sasuke gaining them both some closure by killing the man who had killed their parents, but really, maybe it was better this way. At least he had managed to do his foolish little brother one last favour by saving him from the Orochimaru parasite that he had managed to pick up in his quest to become more powerful.

The problem, however, Itachi mused to himself as he tested the give of the manacles around his wrists, was that he had been pretty reasonably sure that that was his last act. After all, he had been in extreme chakra deprivation, he had been coughing up blood, blood had been coming out of his eyesockets around his sharingan, oh, and that electrical attack… Kirin, it seemed that Sasuke and he shared a taste for grandiose names for their original jutsu… catching the edge of that had _not_ been fun either.

So Itachi felt that he had pretty good reason to assume that he should be dead.

Oddly, he actually felt comparatively pretty good.

Sure, he was chained to a wall. That was… annoying.

But otherwise? He could see more clearly than he had been able to for ages. He was hungry, thirsty, and felt like someone had been using him as a punching bag recently, and was a _little_ low on chakra… but compared to how he should be feeling? How he had been feeling for the last couple of months?

This was highly suspicious.

Itachi eyeballed his manacles, and decided that he could probably slip out of them if he dislocated both of his thumbs. That would be irritating, as it would limit him in the number of jutsu he could do, but Itachi thought that so long as he managed to not run into any S-ranked nin he would probably be fine to get out of here.

Wherever the hell "here" was…

No matter. Itachi might not be overly used to being chained to walls specifically, but exfiltrating unfamiliar dungeons made him nostalgic for back in the old days when he had been ANBU. Amazing what one could find nostalgic in retrospect. Itachi supposed that it said nothing good about his life that some of his happiest moments as a child had been when he had been sneaking out of enemy strongholds full of people who would more than happily torture and kill him and pluck out his eyes...

Itachi was just about to proceed with his plan of dislocating his thumbs when he heard a noise outside the cell door.

The door opened, and a rather large shinobi wearing a Sound hitaiate walked in.

"Awake, are you? Tougher than I thought you were, Konoha, I thought for sure after that last session that you'd had it for good."

He sneered at Itachi, and pressed a lever, that caused whatever mechanism that was holding the chain of the manacles over his head was released. Itachi considered the fact that he was still cuffed, but now had about a half-metre of loose chain between his wrists.

Well, as much as he always questioned good luck when it occurred to him (just in case it was a trap, Itachi hadn't gained his S-ranking by being complacent) sometimes Itachi had to remind himself to never underestimate the stupidity of his enemy.

It was the work of seconds to wrap the chain around the Sound-nin's neck and to then use it to silently choke him to unconsciousness. Itachi considered holding on a bit longer, to kill him, and then did so. It didn't pay to leave live enemies behind oneself. They tended to try back-stabbing, and dodging preventable attempts on his life was an irritation that Itachi tended to avoid when he could.

Civilians had a saying, that a stitch in time saved nine.

Ninja had a saying that one didn't have to practice vigilance against dead enemies.

Itachi liked the second saying better. It spoke to him.

Dropping the corpse, Itachi proceeded to loot it for weapons and useful equipment. Itachi was irritated to note that not only were the corpse's boots far too big for him (Itachi was wearing a baggy grey jumpsuit and no shoes) but the corpse was not carrying the key to his cuffs. Still, he was able to leave the cell now, and he could probably get out faster if he was able to use jutsu, so he decided to just put up with the chain for now, and leave his thumbs intact.

Besides, as he had just displayed, the chain made a useful weapon, in a pinch.

Not that there were many things that Itachi couldn't use as a weapon, come to think of it, because he was nothing if not creative, (civilians might play "I spy" when bored, but most ninja of Itachi's acquaintance barring Tobi had always preferred, "Death by teacup", in which the winner was the one who could come up with the best way of killing someone with a random object,) but Itachi decided that was beside the point.

Having acquired a brace of kunai, some brass knuckles and some chakra pills from his enemy's corpse, Itachi left the cell and moved for the exit. He assumed he was underground, going by the smell and ambient light levels, so he went looking for a set of stairs. He killed everyone he encountered along the way, generally before they had time to do more than blink in surprise at him.

Well a few gave him some minimal trouble, but Itachi was almost starting to feel offended.

Did none of them know who he was? Did they never leave this dungeon? Was that what rock they'd been living under?

And what the hell _was_ he doing in a _Sound _stronghold? Itachi had thought that they had mostly disbanded after Sasuke killed Orochimaru's last host-body.

Ah well. It wouldn't be the first time his intel had been wrong.

Finally, Itachi felt fresh air on his face.

Unfortunately that fresh air was from the door to the outside opening, and seven shinobi walking in.

Fortunately, two of them looked Itachi right in the eyes.

He cast a quick genjutsu on the fly to make them think that they were surrounded by enemies, tossed his remaining kunai into the throats of two others, and ducked behind a handy pillar.

A bare minute later, and the two shinobi he had turned were both dead, but only one of the original seven was left standing, and he was bleeding from a rather deep belly-wound.

Itachi picked up a handy rock from the ground and nailed the shinobi in the temple with it. He collapsed.

Itachi, knowing he had very little time, looted the cleanest-looking jacket that looked like it would fit him, retrieved his stolen kunai and added a few to a pouch he had lifted from one of the shinobi, and picked up a tanto that was of at least serviceable quality.

One of the shinobi looked to be about his size in sandals. Itachi was pleased to find that the sandals were indeed about the right size, and the shinobi did not have athlete's foot.

One of the other dead shinobi even had a pack with some travel rations still left in it. Itachi took this too.

Much better.

Itachi stepped outside, not bothering to pause to breathe in the fresh air, although he did enjoy being outside the dingy compound.

His hands were still bound with the chain, but otherwise, things were looking up.


	2. Chapter 2

Itachi decided to test out his pilfered sandals by putting some distance in between himself and the Sound stronghold, and so did so. Judging by the terrain he was in Ta no Kuni.

Huh.

How the hell had he got all the way over here?

No matter. First things first, Itachi needed to find a blacksmith who could be threatened or cajoled (Itachi wasn't all that picky) into removing Itachi's manacles. If he was where he thought he was, there was a little village a few clicks to the south. It was in the direction of Konoha, but Itachi decided that was where he wanted to go, anyway. After all, Konoha tended to be interested in Sasuke's actions, and so Itachi thought it was a good place to start to find out what his foolish little brother was up to.

Also, Itachi supposed he should probably catch up with the current Hokage. If only to have words with her about letting Sasuke out unsupervised where he could be corrupted by evil snake-summoners. Itachi had yet to voice his displeasure about that to anyone from Konoha barring Naruto, and Naruto had been just as displeased about the whole thing as Itachi. Itachi was glad that Sasuke seemed to have good taste in friends, even if he had the people skills of a rabid porcupine.

It occurred to Itachi (and not for the first time) that the plan he had come up with when he was thirteen, to make Sasuke tough and strong and able to take revenge for their clan was a stupid one. By the time Itachi had met Sasuke again though, and had had enough time to grow a little more in experience, it had been too late. The trauma had turned Sasuke hard, like Itachi had wanted, but also brittle. The brittleness was what had allowed Orochimaru in, and what had caused Sasuke to run away from anything that might have given him any happiness.

Itachi considered that if he had a chance to redo things, he would not put Sasuke in a genjutsu that made him watch the clan die at Itachi's hands over and over. He would still encourage his brother's homicidal impulses (after all, homicidal impulses could be very useful for shinobi), but he would take care to direct them somewhere more useful than at himself. Telling Sasuke that there was a conspiracy that Itachi would later explain would have been a whole lot smarter than attempting reverse psychology.

As self-destructive as Itachi had been feeling for the past eight or so years, attempting to use Sasuke as the tool of his suicide had been… unkind. He resolved that since he was feeling a good bit better, he would track down Naruto and offer to help him track down Sasuke and keep him in Konoha. Then Itachi would… do something. Probably offer to help kill the Akatsuki. Though he would give Kisame at least a running head start. He owed the fishy-looking man that much. In a group full of fanatics, rabid crazies, psychopaths and general sadists, Kisame at least had been a reliable partner, who had treated Itachi with professional courtesy.

Itachi did appreciate that, but if ordered by Konoha, he would not hesitate to kill him. He had killed his own parents for Konoha. A mere colleague was nothing compared to that.

Such were Itachi's thoughts as he travelled through the forest. Itachi found himself stumbling a little, which was confusing. It was as though his legs had been shortened by a few centimetres. Itachi could think of no rational explanation for this sensation, and so assumed there wasn't one. Maybe he was just more tired than he felt.

He decided that once he got free of the chains, he would go to Konoha. It was about time that he talked to the Godaime in person. Sandaime should have left her files that would tell her about him, but Itachi felt that the personal touch would help his case in ensuring that she knew his price for providing all of the intel about Akatsuki was still Sasuke's continued well-being and assured place in Konoha.

A bare half-hour after Itachi had made this decision, he detected chakra signatures.

Itachi sighed. He was really not in the mood for this.

He continued striding through the forest as though oblivious, but to his surprise, the ninja he detected did not attempt to ambush him.

Instead, Hatake Kakashi lazily walked out from behind a tree.

"Yo," Kakashi said. "Good to see you made it out, Itachi."

Itachi blinked. Kakashi sounded sincere.

How odd.

"Are you injured?" Kakashi asked him.

Itachi frowned internally (externally, his face was a bland mask, he was a professional, after all).

They might both be loyal to Konoha, but the last time they had met, Kakashi had done his best to kill him. However, Kakashi was currently questioning him like he was a comrade. Itachi was naturally suspicious. Had Tsunade decided to inform Kakashi about his real role? Was Kakashi trying to manipulate him?

If so, he was going about it from a somewhat bizarre angle.

Still, Kakakashi _was_ generally known for being good at what he did. Not as good as Itachi, since Itachi had beaten him with Tsukiyomi that one time, but then, Itachi's grieving process involved a whole lot less time spent sitting next to cenotaphs talking to ghosts, and a lot more killing anyone who got in his way.

So Itachi figured he probably _should_ cut Kakashi some slack, even though he hadn't been able to keep Sasuke in the vill- oh wait no, no slack to give. Itachi was still pretty upset about that.

"Where's Sasuke?" Itachi asked.

Kakashi eye-smiled. "Your baby brother is fine. I had to get Naruto and Sakura to practically sit on him to stop him from coming."

Itachi almost blinked.

"He's in the village?"

Kakashi's expressions were difficult to read with the mask, but a long time ago, Kakashi had been the captain of Itachi's ANBU squad. Because of that, Itachi could read the rising concern in Kakashi's shoulders. When everyone was wearing masks, being able to tell the more subtle signs of body language became an important survival skill.

Concern for Itachi's wellbeing? Or that Itachi was asking about Sasuke?

"I'm glad," was all Itachi said.

There was a slight pause, and then the sources of the other two chakra signatures stepped forward.

This time Itachi did blink.

"Kai!"

One of the hallucinations inclined his head, obviously worried.

"You alright there baby cous?"

Itachi gritted his teeth, and tried again to dispel the obvious genjutsu.

"Kai!"

"Why do you think this is a genjutsu?" came the calm voice of the other hallucination.

Itachi gave up on attempting to dispel, and decided to address the probable caster.

"Uchiha Madara, huh. I had hoped to be finally free of you," he said. There was only one person who could conceivably make genjutsu work on Itachi at this point, so it was not hard to figure out the most likely culprit.

The hallucination who looked suspiciously like his deceased cousin Obito blinked.

"Wait, Uchiha Madara from the founding of Konoha Madara?" he asked incredulously.

"What is the point of this, Madara?" Itachi demanded dully, ignoring the figment of Madara's imagination.

"What is the point of what?" Kakashi, or Itachi supposed "Kakashi", asked calmly.

"Trapping me in this genjutsu and showing me dead people. Who's next, Shisui?" Itachi shook his head and laughed darkly. Maybe he owed Madara thanks after all. He didn't remember his cousin Obito well, since Itachi had only been 4 when he had died. It was almost… nice to see what the older cousin who had always been up for a game would have looked like. Itachi noted distantly that Madara had taken the effort to include significant scarring on one side of Obito's face, including a dark-orange eye-patch covering where the eye that he had given to Kakashi had been. Itachi supposed that attention to detail like that was part of what had allowed Madara to become so strong.

If it wasn't for the fact that Madara no doubt was attempting some form of elaborate manipulation, Itachi might even be somewhat grateful.

He wasn't one hundred percent sure why Madara had included Rin though. Itachi had met her only the once… maybe. His Aunt Fumiko had kept Obito's team photo, which was the only reason why he even remembered what she might have looked like.

The (three, Itachi supposed, since if the other two were part of the genjutsu, then so must Kakashi be) hallucinations looked at him oddly.

"…Itachi, I'm sorry we didn't come fast enough. What would I have to do to prove that I'm me?" the Obito-hallucination asked.

Hallucinations trying to prove that they were real. Now Itachi's day was complete. Well, maybe if he played along Madara would tip his hand.

"What is Aunt Fumiko's favourite flower?" Itachi asked.

Obito's brow squinched. "Uhhhhhh…"

Kakashi had an expression that Itachi interpreted as, "If only this wasn't so serious I would be rolling my eyes right now." Itachi was surprised that Madara had at some point apparently paid enough attention to Kakashi to know what that expression looked like.

"Itachi," said Kakashi in a serious tone. "On your third mission on my team you went AWOL. I tracked you down and found you buying a festival mask for Sasuke's birthday."

Itachi almost blinked. _No one_ knew about that. Kakashi had talked him out of the festival mask, because he had thought that it would give away where the mission had been. Itachi had also lucked out, because for some reason Kakashi had decided not to tell on him, saying that Itachi had been doing reconnaissance when their other team-mates looked askance at their youngest member by almost a decade. When Itachi had asked Kakashi about it later, Kakashi had muttered something about "child prodigy solidarity" and ruffled his hair, telling him that if he ever did it again Kakashi would tell their team-mates that Itachi still wet the bed.

"What mask was I intending on buying?" was all Itachi said.

"A cat," Kakashi said in bland tones. "And you ended up getting him a tomato plant instead, which didn't make sense to me until years later."

This time, Itachi did blink.

"…Either Madara's spyring is incredibly better than expected, or you're really Hatake Kakashi," Itachi admitted. He paused. "But it is more likely that Madara was just watching me for longer than I thought."

"Why?" Kakashi asked him.

Itachi shrugged. "Because Obito has been dead since I was 4. A Rock nin caught him in a landslide. And you killed Rin."

Kakashi frowned. "Why would I kill my team-mate?"

Obito scoffed. "Yeah, like hell that would ever happen. Bakashi might be a bit of an asshole sometimes, but he wouldn't kill someone on his team." He grinned. "The only time I've caught him quoting me was that line, 'those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon a comrade are worse than scum.'"

"A broken clock is still right twice a day," Kakashi eye-smiled.

Itachi shrugged. "From what I gathered, she asked you to. I never got the whole story, because it was classified, but apparently she had to die or else something on the scale of the Kyuubi attack was going to hit the village, so it wasn't murder, it was assisted suicide."

The three team-mates looked at one another from the corner of their eyes. That sounded oddly plausible. Well, except for the part where Itachi was talking about a long-dead ancestor casting genjutsu on him. That was just plain crazy.

After a pause, Rin spoke up.

"Have you considered that this is not in fact a genjutsu, but a drug-induced hallucination?" she suggested. "That would widen the pool of people who would be able to make you believe you were hallucinating."

Itachi considered this. "You have a point," he allowed. "I did wake up chained to a wall in a cell surrounded by Sound nin after all. Madara would probably not have bothered with that particular Hitaiate, since he considers Orochimaru to be a traitor…" he paused. "Though I don't know who else would have bothered to patch me up just to feed me hallucinogens. Probably an extremely skilled med-nin though, since the last thing I remember was dying," he said candidly. Suddenly he was hit by a wave of exhaustion. "Huh. Must have used up more chakra than I thought," he mumbled to himself, as he felt his vision starting to tunnel.

"Itachi? Are you alright?" Rin asked him, sounding concerned.

Itachi waved one hand vaguely, and then proceeded to collapse as everything went dark.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

"He was talking a lot more than usual. And he was talking complete crazy. Rin, I think you might be onto something with the drugs," came Obito's voice.

"Whether I am or not, we need to get him to a Yamanaka," Rin replied. "If nothing else, they'd be able to figure out what he thinks is going on."

"That goes without saying," Obito said, his tone concurrent with a probable eye-roll.

Itachi did an assessment of his surroundings. He was blindfolded and on someone's back, as they leapt through the trees. Sensibly, whoever it was (he assumed Kakashi, simply because Obito and Rin's voices sounded off to one side) had tied his hands, wrist to elbow, and then looped ropes from his arms to his thighs. This made him easier to carry, and made it next to impossible for him to attack the man carrying him. Well, if he used Jiraiya's hair jutsu then maybe he would be able to attack, or if he had some kind of mouth-based attack… actually no, his face up against Kakashi's flak jacket for the most part, so Kakashi would probably be able to fling him off before he managed to lift himself to attack.

(Probably. Itachi considered trying to find out, but then quickly discarded the idea. If nothing else, the other two would probably attack him if he tried to injure their comrade.)

Apparently the hallucinations had been unable to remove the manacles, (or had decided against it,) as the coarse metal was still rasping on Itachi's wrists, with the chain jingling with every movement that Kakashi made.

Itachi found it mildly irritating, actually, as he thought that Kakashi should be making more effort to move silently.

Then again, perhaps he felt complacent with two team-members to watch over him.

"So you're awake then?" came Kakashi's voice from just in front of him.

So Itachi had been right. He was on Kakashi's back.

"Yes," he replied. He didn't see the point in pretending otherwise. No doubt Kakashi had felt him stiffen as he awoke.

"You passed out from a combination of bloodloss, chakra depletion and general exhaustion," Kakashi said. "Rin was rather put out when she figured this out. She thought she should have noticed you were at the end of your tether earlier."

Itachi didn't really have anything to say to that, since he wasn't sure he trusted that figments of someone else's imagination would actually care about his wellbeing. Instead, he decided to ask where Kakashi was taking him.

"To Konoha, of course," Kakashi replied.

Konoha?

Konoha.

Itachi exhaled slowly.

"It'll be good to see home," he said. "Even if…" he trailed off.

"I'm not sure how to convince you that this is all real," Kakashi said bluntly.

"Good," said Itachi. Though he had been thinking less about whether or not this was an elaborate genjutsu, and more about the fact that he was, last he had checked, a wanted missing-nin to 99 percent of Konoha's populace. Sure, the Hokage should know that he was technically undercover. And the Elders, if those old vultures were still about. But everyone else? Itachi would be lucky if they didn't attempt to kill him on sight.

Come to think of it though, the last time he had seen Kakashi just that had occurred, so this was a significant departure from expected behaviour. Especially since Itachi had hit Kakashi with Tsukiyomi, in which he had subjectively tortured Kakashi for three days. Objectively three seconds, but in the mind, the subjective experience was more important. Ask any psychologist or Yamanaka.

Whilst Itachi was not precisely complaining about Kakashi not getting his revenge for that little episode (though even Itachi would admit that he richly deserved it,) the lack of reprisal confused the living fuck out of him.

Well. If this was real. Which it wasn't. Obviously, because otherwise Rin and Obito would be dead, and Kakashi would be trying his best to kill him just now, rather than piggy-backing him in the general direction of medical attention and a place he still thought of as home, despite everything.

"Is it really though?" Kakashi asked rhetorically.

Itachi had lost track of the conversation, distracted by his thoughts.

"Is what really what?"

"Is it really good that I can't convince you that this is real?"

Itachi shrugged as best he could in the position he was in. "Is it ever a good idea to completely believe what someone is saying?"

Suddenly, he was reminded of what his parents in the moments before he killed them. His father saying that he was proud of him. His mother hadn't said as much, but she hadn't disagreed. Both of them had been unsurprised that he had been standing behind them with a sword, ready to kill them.

Did he believe that his father was truly proud of him? Was it even a good thing if he had been?

Itachi didn't know.

All he knew was that he had failed his father's final request, to look after Sasuke. If Itachi had done his job as big brother properly, then Sasuke would never have defected, would never have considered Konoha beneath him.

Itachi didn't know how he could have done things differently, all he knew was that he somehow should have.

Should have made sure that Sasuke was not ripe for the picking when Orochimaru had gone sniffing about for a replacement body with a Sharingan.

He had beaten the Sannin so easily when he was only 13, he had forgotten that for most people, Orochimaru was an adversary that they would hesitate to annoy.

And what had he done? Taunted him.

Whenever Itachi felt exasperated at his little brother's, or his clan's hubris, he would remind himself of that moment, and realise that even though _he_ could cash the checks that his mouth wrote, his little brother? Not so much.

Sasuke had paid for Itachi's mistake when Orochimaru turned his attention onto him.

Sasuke paying for Itachi's actions.

That seemed to be a trend.

"Oi cous, you're awake!" Obito shouted suddenly, distracting Itachi from his morbid thoughts.

"Obito, shut the hell up!" hissed Rin. "Do you want to alert every enemy for twenty kilometres of our presence here?"

Obito snorted, by the sound of it skipping lightly from branch to branch.

"Like hell," he said. "We're nearly at Konoha. If we meet any enemies at this point, then the sentries aren't doing their jobs right." But Kakashi noticed that he said this a good deal more quietly.

"Idiot," said Kakashi in a fond tone.

Twenty minutes later, and they were going through the gates.

Kotetsu and Izumo (Itachi remembered them as peers at his very brief stint in the Academy, even though they were a good 6 or so years older than him) seemed their usual cheery selves, though to Itachi's mild surprise (and yet not, because thus far nothing since he had woken up made sense with what he knew about the world, so this was just more evidence of an elaborate genjutsu) they seemed to be concerned about his wellbeing.

"Good to see that you managed to find him," Izumo said.

Itachi blinked. They had been sent to find him specifically?

And yet they had not attacked him, and were taking him to the hospital before Ibiki's domain?

Genjutsu. It had to be.

Itachi wasn't sure that he would be able to fathom the alternative.

Because what other explanation could there be?

Maybe he had just gone mad.

Actually, that would explain a lot.

Itachi nodded to himself.

Yes. If this turned out to be not a genjutsu, or drugs, then the only other logical explanation was that he had had a psychotic break at some point.

Frankly, Itachi was a little surprised he had not had one earlier, but he supposed that these things came on in their own time.

Ten minutes later, and Kakashi was depositing Itachi on a hospital bed, with concerned-looking med-nin fluttering about them.

The first thing that the med-nin did was to tell a nurse to bring a hacksaw so that they could remove the manacles.

Itachi had not expected that.

Rather than interrogation, he was receiving care.

Good care. Care that was far better than any he had received since he was thirteen.

The med-nin clucked over his bruises and chakra depletion. And a wound in his back that Itachi had not even noticed- according to them, it was a miracle that he had not bled out from it.

Itachi just shrugged, which caused the two of them (male and female and near-identical-looking, which weirded Itachi right the fuck out) to cluck even harder.

It was around two hours later, that a knock came at the hospital room door. One of the med-nin answered it.

"Oh, Hokage-sama!"

"Yes, hello Tanaka-san. Is Itachi fit for debriefing?"

The conversation continued after that point, but Itachi wasn't listening.

He was too busy staring in shock at the man in the doorway.

"Y-yondaime-sama?!" Itachi gasped.

Now he knew for a fact that this was a genjutsu.


	4. Chapter 4

Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage, was more than a little perturbed to see a kid he had watched grow up stare at him like he was a ghost.

It would seem that his team had not been exaggerating when they had said that Itachi seemed to have been brainwashed into believing some strange alternate version of reality in which most of them were dead. Minato could think of a few motives for doing such a thing, but the likeliest one was that Itachi's captors had attempted to break him, though for what longer-term plan he could only speculate.

He needed more information.

But the way that Itachi was staring at him, he had a feeling that he might not be able to get it, as the kid (sure, he was a chunin, but Minato still remembered when Itachi had been about to enter the Academy, so he was always going to remain a kid in _his_ eyes) looked like he was a breath away from shutting down completely.

"Hello Itachi, it's been a while," he said, instead of starting with the standard order to report.

Itachi nodded warily. "Yes it has." Itachi had been around 6 when the Hokage had died, so "a while" was a bit of an understatement, considering he was now 21. Idly he wondered if he should keep counting his age if he was dead. Did it count if he were no longer growing and changing? Was it now as though he were frozen in amber? Or did the fact that he was obviously able to retain new memories mean that mentally at least he was still getting older?

Itachi shrugged inwardly. It hardly mattered. Dead was dead.

If that was even what was going on.

"How are you feeling?" the Hokage asked him.

Itachi allowed himself a wry quirk of his mouth. "Physically? Like I was beaten up, and probably tortured before breaking my way out of an underground prison and running a good five kilometres before Kakashi and the others picked me up."

"'Probably' tortured? You don't remember?"

"Mentally," Itachi continued as though that was what the Hokage had asked about (and implicitly, he had), "I'm starting to get the impression that the only explanation for what I'm seeing is that I'm dead, drugged, under a really, _really_ elaborate genjutsu, or…" Itachi trailed off, but he could see that the Hokage could hear what Itachi hadn't said. That a likely explanation for his mental state was that he had succumbed to the Uchiha family brand insanity in a new and 'interesting' way that might get him grounded for a very long time, if not forever, recommendation pending results of a thorough psychiatric examination.

Assuming that routines were followed in this bizarre world Itachi had woken up in, he had almost certainly ticked all the boxes to get himself sent up for that one anyway, just as a precautionary measure.

There was a pause.

Hokage and shinobi stared at each other, each considering the implications of the other's expression.

"You know why I'm here," the Hokage stated finally.

Itachi nodded. "Timeframe?" Itachi asked.

Minato filed that away. That question was only ever asked by people fresh from the Academy, people who were missing time, or people who were disoriented. This just added more evidence that Itachi was most likely psychologically compromised.

"The last few days," he responded aloud.

Itachi pondered for a moment.

Might as well tell the truth.

Couldn't make anythings _more_ complicated for himself at this point.

"I remember fighting Sasuke, and then dying," he said flatly. "Then I may have lost some time, but the next thing I remember is waking up, chained in a cell in what I surmise was a Sound stronghold. I fought my way out, leaving… 23? No, 24 casualties behind me. I didn't stop to confirm any of my kills, not enough time if I wanted to avoid being mobbed, and I'm not exactly in the best shape, so some of them _might_ still be alive." Itachi's tone however implied how likely he thought that was. He proceeded to tell the Yondaime about running through the forest, encountering Kakashi's team, and hearing their conclusion that Itachi had probably been drugged.

"How are you really?" the Hokage asked him then, his expression searching.

Itachi gave him a wry look. It was kind of the Hokage to sound so concerned, whether he be a figment of Itachi's imagination or not.

"Confused," was all he said.

The Hokage nodded as though this was an illuminating answer. Itachi wasn't to know, but it actually was. Namikaze Minato had been dealing with Uchiha for a long time now, through his genin Obito (though Obito himself was not exactly typical for his clan), and his wife's best friend Uchiha Mikoto. More to the point, because of that latter relationship, he had known Itachi since he was a child. He was well aware that the word "confused" from him was used in similar contexts to which another shinobi might me screaming something along the lines of, "What the fuck is even happening to me nothing makes sense here oh kami why kami why!?"

"You look as though you've seen a ghost," was all he said.

"Technically, I've seen several," Itachi replied. It sounded like a joke, but Minato knew that he was being dead serious.

Actually, Minato mused, that might explain a lot. Especially considering his statement that he, Itachi, thought he had died. He considered for a moment at the point of causing a shinobi to think that they were dead, and then realised – Itachi was not exactly being loquacious for someone in general, but by his own standards, he was being positively loose-tongued.

"Ghosts, huh. Myself included?" the Hokage asked shrewdly.

Itachi blinked at that, and then started to laugh.

It was not a happy sound.

"Did I die, after all?" he said finally, relaxing back on the pillows. He seemed almost relieved. "I was unaware that Kakashi and Kotetsu and Izumo had passed on, but it's the explanation that makes the most sense." He sighed. "Though this isn't what I thought the afterlife would be like. Frankly I was half-hoping for oblivion. At least then I could get some rest."

The Hokage watched him, and Itachi wondered at the emotion he could see behind those blue eyes. He noticed that they had laugh-lines mixed amongst the expected stress-lines. Itachi frowned (outwardly, not inwardly. If he was dead, it hardly mattered, did it?) a little at this.

"You look older than I remember," he admitted, when the Yondaime looked at him questioningly.

"When is the last time you remember seeing me?"

"Naruto was yet to be born, so I must have been about six." Itachi grimaced. He considered his next thought before he said it aloud, and then decided since he was either dead or in a genjutsu it didn't really matter if he said it. "I know you died to save Konoha, but it would have been better if you had managed to set up a successor. Sandaime-sama was…tired."

Minato wondered if the Sandaime Itachi was picturing had looked anything like Itachi himself did now.

This situation seemed delicate. Minato had been Hokage for 12 years now, and even before that time, he had had to debrief many ninja who were nearing the end of their tether.

Itachi had the look of a man who had reached that point a while ago, with the only thing between his sanity and curling up and falling into whatever his equivalent of a screaming heap being… well actually, Minato wasn't sure. It was exactly because of that though, that he didn't tell Itachi that he wasn't dead. He had no idea what effect that would have on the man, and he hated to lose a good shinobi like this. Hopefully with some time off to heal and some counselling, he would be able to make a full recovery. If nothing else, the efficiently ruthless side of the Hokage whispered, he needed to learn _exactly_ what Itachi had been subjected to, to bring him to this point. Otherwise, this could happen to other ninja in his ranks.

Psychological weapons were more insidious than physical ones, and sometimes even more effective. Minato needed details, so that he could talk to his advisors about strategies to deal with this. More resilience training perhaps? Minato was almost distracted by considering the possibilities, but he turned his attention back to one of his village's most loyal ninja.

The Yondaime nodded seriously. "Itachi, I would like you to talk to a Yamanaka for a full debrief."

Itachi nodded. He had expected as much. He supposed that expertise in life carried on into death.

And if he wasn't dead… (he had noticed that the Hokage had neither confirmed nor denied his theory)…

If he wasn't dead…

Well, he would explode that bridge behind him when he came to it.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It was only a brief while after the Hokage left that the Yamanaka showed up, with a silent Aburame guard who would be there to watch her body. The Aburame looked like any of his clan- tall, with short dark hair, dark glasses, and a voluminous jacket with a high collar that hid the majority of his facial expressions. He took up a position beside Itachi, and stood in that relaxed but alert pose that Itachi knew meant if he were to try anything, he would probably be fighting for his life before he had time to do more than twitch.

Whether or not he would win would depend on a number of unknown factors, but Itachi thought that whilst he could probably take the Aburame, it would be a (potentially literal) pain in the ass (well, probably a more debilitating place than that if the Aburame had anything to say about it, but still, the point stood).

The Yamanaka was a woman in her mid-twenties, with the usual fair hair of her clan, tied back slightly idiosyncratically into a bun, rather than left to hang loose in a ponytail. Itachi wondered idly if there was any significance to that, but supposed it might have come about due to some manner of hair-pulling incident in the middle of a fight. He himself tied his hair back because of just such an incident, which had happened when he was a mere genin.

That, and the hitaiate alone was insufficient to keep his hair out of his face. Sometimes he wondered how some nin put up with it. He'd considered cutting his hair before, but refrained for two reasons. The first was that his mother hand liked his hair long.

The second was that when his hair was short, it stuck up stupidly at the back.

"Uchiha Itachi. I am Yamanaka Tsubaki, and I'll be doing an assessment of your mental state," the Yamanaka stated somewhat redundantly.

Itachi wondered what his expression looked like. Probably the usual bland expression he saw in the mirror. A long time ago, when Inuzuka Hana had been his comrade, she had called him an "expressionless bastard". The fact was, Itachi knew that his face didn't really tend to show well to people he didn't know what was going on behind it. His jounin sensei back in the day had told him that it meant he would have to be careful when creating any cover story, careful that he didn't try to pretend he was gregarious, because it would come across as false.

Itachi had originally been offended at the thought that there was anything that he would not be good at, but whenever he had experimented with such expressions, people had looked at him sideways, or, (most memorably in the case of Inuzuka Hana actually,) had outright started laughing at him.

In response to the Yamanaka's statement, he simply nodded.

"Alright. I'll start with a few questions."

The questions were fairly standard. Itachi had answered them before, when he had had to go through the annual mandatory psych review that all ANBU were slated for.

He gave his usual answers, and they all amounted to the same thing.

He was fine.

He was loyal to his village.

He was happy to kill or die for it.

He loved his family.

These things were still as true as they had ever been. Especially since he was 9, he had always defined his family as "Sasuke". His love for his little brother had always been uncomplicated.

Unlike his love for the rest of the clan.

These days it was more complicated, Itachi admitted to himself (if not the Yamanaka), since his brother had betrayed Konoha.

But Itachi still loved his little brother.

After the verbal questions, came the inevitable mindwalk.

Mind walks were odd.

Itachi could feel the Yamanaka poking about, but was not always aware of what specifically she was looking at. His life flashed behind his eyes, generally a little too fast to really catch more than a few snippets.

After a while, the Yamanaka came back to herself, with a mild crease between her brows. Itachi thought she looked a little disturbed. He wondered what that meant for him, but resolved not to worry about it.

Whatever it was that was worrying her, there was no point asking. All he could do was await the results.

His fate was out of his hands, for now.

Nothing new about that, he thought to himself a little darkly.

"Thank you Uchiha-san," was all she said, before she left, with the Aburame in tow.

...

"So?" the Hokage was pacing behind his desk whilst a clone signed documents. Or perhaps it was the other way around. It was hard for Aburame Mushimaru to tell.

Tsubaki stood to attention, and reported. "From what I can tell, he believes a number of things that cannot be true. It is a genjutsu unlike any I have seen before, as I cannot tell how it has been rooted to his chakra network. Perhaps it is a new form of brainwashing, maybe it is due to some form of elaborate hallucination. I have never seen anything like this before."

The Hokage's brow furrowed. "Things that cannot be true? Like what?"

Tsubaki shook her head. "For one, he believes that he is the one who killed a large proportion of the Uchiha, including his parents, and that other than Sasuke, all others of his clan are dead."

Both clone and original stared at Tsubaki.

"What? What purpose could that possibly serve?" the Hokage was flabbergasted.

"Perhaps they were trying to break him," the Aburame said dully. "Perhaps they were somehow able to tap into his latent survivor's guilt." The Aburame shrugged. "Either way, I recommend that he be taken off the roster for now. Why? Because I doubt that he can currently pass the minimum psych requirements. His loyalty to the village is intact as far as I can see, but I consider his current levels of confusion and… distress to be not conducive to him performing to anything like peak efficiency."

The Yamanaka nodded. "I concur."

The Hokage nodded. "Very well then. Do either of you believe him to be a danger to himself or others?"

Yamanaka Tsubaki shook her head. "Hard to say when it comes to himself. From what I can see, he doesn't value his own life. However, the one thing that appears central to his personality apart from loyalty to the village is his love for his younger brother Sasuke."

Namikaze Minato nodded. "Ah." Leveraging Itachi's love for his younger brother to keep him alive for his own good was so low on the scale of shinobi manipulation that it was not even remotely worthy of comment.

"So, you recommend we release Itachi to his family as soon as possible then," he stated.

Yamanaka and Aburame nodded in unison.

"Indeed, Hokage-sama," replied Aburame Mushimaru. "Why? Because from what I have previously observed of his behaviour, seeing Sasuke will set him at ease. And perhaps seeing that there are other surviving Uchiha will help to break this… conditioning that he seems to have been put through."

The Hokage's clone popped, and Yamanaka Tsubaki was mildly surprised to discover that the original was the one that had been sitting at the desk doing paperwork.

"Very well," the Yondaime nodded. He waved one hand, and one of the ANBU on duty in his office flipped from what a civilian would have assumed was an empty patch of wall. Neither the Yamanaka nor the Aburame reacted.

"Pass this message on to the Uchiha. Uchiha Itachi is to be released to them. And I want a conversation with Uchiha Mikoto at her absolute soonest convenience. Tell her…" Minato grimaced. "Just tell her that it's important."

….

Itachi lay back in his hospital bed meditating.

It was a more useful usage of his time than counting the cracks in the ceiling (7), or the number of petals in the flower arrangement on the bedside table (89) or the number of holes in the ventilation shaft openings (24, there were 6 in each shaft).

If Itachi were any less disciplined a shinobi, then perhaps he would have admitted to boredom.

And so it was with no small measure of relief that he heard the door open.

He turned, and saw something that he had never thought to see again.

Something he had never even dreamed of seeing again.

"Aniki!"

Sasuke's smile.

Sasuke… his foolish little brother… was actually smiling at him.

Maybe he was being rewarded in the afterlife after all.

…


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Sasuke…" his little brother's name left his lips before he was fully conscious of saying anything.

The figure standing in front of him was clearly his younger brother, but it was a version of Sasuke that Itachi had never seen- he looked to be about thirteen years of age, but he had the same range of expressions that Itachi had seen on him when Sasuke had still been tiny, and innocent. Well, perhaps not quite as innocent as he had looked then, but it was at the very least much closer to that range of expressions than the quiet brooding loathing that Itachi had seen when he had checked in on his brother around that time.

Wait, thirteen? Did that mean that Sasuke had died when Orochimaru had lured him away?

The explanation seemed unlikely. Itachi might have put some stock into its plausibility had it not been for the very simple fact that Orochimaru had attempted to take Sasuke over in the middle of their fight. Well, that and the fact that Orochimaru was just not that good an actor.

Maybe the afterlife wasn't chronologically linear?

Maybe this wasn't the afterlife?

Maybe this wasn't _Sasuke_.

"Aniki, what happened?" Sasuke's eyes were wide with concern, an expression that Itachi hadn't seen for a decade. His horrible suspicion grew.

"What were you doing, worrying Kaa-san like that? You know she said she was going to gut you if you came home less than intact after last time. You didn't push yourself too hard again, did you?"

Was this… how Sasuke would have been if Itachi had not hurt him so very badly?

Then what Sasuke was actually saying filtered through to him.

A wave of cold washed through Itachi's insides.

"Last time?"

Sasuke looked at him in confusion. "Yeah, last time. You know, when you came back from Rain." His nose wrinkled. "You never did tell me exactly what happened, but I know Yondaime-sama awarded you a pretty big bounty…. Which means you had better have got me a badass present for my birthday, because that's the only excuse you get for missing it," he continued with a pout. "I mean, it's not every day I turn 12."

Itachi's confusion level had just gone up several notches.

Actually, more like several hundred notches.

A number of different responses ran through Itachi's head. The one that managed to win however, was:

"What?"

He sat up suddenly, and the instantaneous pain from the too-quick movement as he tore his stitches brought his thoughts into focus. The pain of lying on his stitched-up back had previously been negligible, and easy enough for Itachi to ignore. This was… not.

If he was dead, then why did he feel pain?

If he was dead, then why would the _Yondaime_ be the one debriefing him?

If he was dead, then why have his story checked by a Yamanaka?

If he was dead, then why would Sasuke be talking about events that had never happened, including a conversation with his mother?

Why would Sasuke be talking about his birthday?

Why wouldn't he be talking about things they had _actually_ experienced together?

Why wouldn't Sasuke be blaming Itachi?

Why?!

So this wasn't Sasuke?

Itachi was vaguely aware that he was starting to hyperventilate.

The pain from his back as he shudderd suddenly made him focus.

He was in pain, and there was no supernatural source. This didn't match any conception of hell that Itachi could think of (although some ninja joked about waking up in hospital and not being able to tell the difference…no, that was ridiculous).

_Focus._

So he… wasn't dead?

Itachi could hear his heart thundering in his ears, and his own sharp gasps. These physiological sensations, when coupled with the pain, added weight to his newest hypothesis.

Though that did lead to the next pressing question.

Then what the actual fuck was happening?

What other explanation could there be for all of the dead people walking about?

His first theory, genjutsu?

No, it was far too elaborate. And the events that had occurred were far too random. If this was supposed to put Itachi at ease for information purposes, then putting in random events that had never happened would be highly inadvisable. Putting in _dead people_ that Itachi had never been especially close to in life made no sense either. Was he at the mercy of someone who was insane?

Or was _he_ the one that had gone completely insane?

Actually…

That was uncomfortably plausible.

Had he somehow managed to lock himself into some kind of…

"Itachi? Itachi? It's okay. Itachi? Please tell me that you're okay."

Itachi came back to himself, and saw that Sasuke had backed himself up against the wall, and was pressing the emergency button, whilst calling Itachi's name in a calm voice, despite his clear expression of worry. Basic procedure as taught by the Academy for how to deal with someone undergoing a PTSD flashback- move out of range, stay calm, and call their name. Sensibly, Sasuke was looking everywhere but Itachi's face- it wouldn't do for Itachi to catch his eyes and accidentally put him under some sort of panic-induced genjutsu.

Oh the irony.

Itachi consciously slowed his breathing down, laced his fingers together and put his hands behind his head in the 'I mean no harm' position. (Civilians always got this wrong when they did it, because they forgot that holding empty hands in front of oneself was the 'ready' position for making handseals.)

The door swung open, and three med-nin leapt in.

They relaxed slightly when they saw Itachi's pose.

"Report," one snapped.

"I was talking to him, and he suddenly started hyperventilating. Then I couldn't get him to respond to his name, and he was tearing the sheets with his hands, so I backed off and pressed the Emergency Button, ma'am," Sasuke replied. "It was only a couple of seconds ago that he came out of it."

Itachi looked down at the sheets about his knees, and saw that Sasuke was right- the parts that had been in his immediate reach were torn to shreds.

"Uchiha Itachi? Are you with us?" one of the other med-nin asked in a tone that sounded almost bored. Itachi might have been almost offended, were it not for the fact that she was an obvious Nara.

"Yes," Itachi replied.

"Will you allow me to check you over?" the med-nin asked.

Itachi swallowed. "I think I tore some of my stitches," was all he said.

The med-nin obviously took that as assent, as a few seconds later he was checking Itachi over, listening to his heart-beat and checking the stitches.

"Well the bad news is that you popped your stitches. The good news though, is that your chakra levels have risen enough that I can use a jutsu to close the wound without endangering you."

Itachi nodded once in response, and did his best to ignore the green glow of the med-nin's hand reaching behind him.

The bored-sounding Nara then spoke. "You appear to have had a panic attack. Are you aware of why that might have happened?"

Itachi inclined his head almost jerkily.

Oh yeah. He could think of a few reasons…

"Care to share with the class?"

"No," was all he said.

But he flicked his eyes over to look at Sasuke, to provide a plausible explanation of why he didn't want to talk about it.

Itachi needed… time. Yes.

He needed time to regroup.

To recover.

To gather more data.

Because, if he wasn't dead…

And this wasn't a genjutsu…

Then what in the hell was going on?


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

It was only an hour after his… episode… that Itachi was told he could go home with Sasuke.

"Home?" he repeated stupidly.

People were giving him sidelong glances.

Especially Sasuke.

Thankfully though, he refrained from saying anything. Itachi had no idea what the med-nin might have told him, but whatever it was, he was grateful, because it meant that he didn't have to come up with a plausible cover story.

Though that said, he could make a fair guess at it, considering the panic attack he had had just before.

Probably had him diagnosed with some kind of post-mission psychological fatigue.

Which was true, if Itachi was honest with himself, but not exactly for the more obvious of reasons.

Sasuke had brought Itachi clothes that looked a lot like the ones Itachi had left the village in back when he was thirteen- plain, dark blue, and emblazoned with the Uchiha fan.

Itachi felt an odd wave of nostalgia as he put the clothes on.

They fit him perfectly, and yet…

Silently, Itachi promised himself he would find something else to wear.

After all this time, wearing his clan's crest felt… wrong… considering the circumstances.

Ah well. Still, better this than a hospital gown.

It had been many years since Itachi had had to deal with fangirls (slaughtering one's entire clan and going missing-nin tended to… thin the herd more than a little, and the ones who _that_ didn't bother… well, there had been this one time in Iwa where Kisame had had to intervene. Itachi didn't know what Kisame had said to that particular lady, but she'd said something about 'not getting in the way of true love' with starry eyes before dashing off. Judging by the way Kisame couldn't stop laughing for weeks afterwards, Itachi _knew_ he didn't want to know) but the thought of walking down Konoha's main street in something backless…

It _really_ didn't bear even thinking about.

Walking through Konoha with a chattering Sasuke was also strangely nostalgic.

The shops all looked about the same. The people too. Well, those that Itachi vaguely recognised all looked a little older than he remembered, but considering the last time he had been in Konoha he had only been a little older than Sasuke currently looked…

Actually, there was a thought.

"Sasuke," Itachi said slowly, interrupting the constant chatter, "you said you're twelve, right?"

Sasuke looked at him sideways.

"Yes," he said, an odd tone in his voice as his expression went from cheerful to blank. Itachi blinked. He hadn't meant to upset him, but he supposed that it made sense that he would be, if this really was his little brother who apparently _didn't _hate for killing their parents and a significant proportion of their clan.

"Does that mean I'm 17 then?" he mused aloud. How odd. He had been 21 when he died. If this wasn't real (could it be real, could it? Did he want it to be? Did he not want it to be?) then it seemed like a strange detail. Why would he suddenly be younger?

Though he supposed that it made about the same amount of sense as anything else since he had woken up in a Sound basement.

Zero.

Sasuke's expression remained blank, but he looked away.

"…yeah," was all he said, quietly.

Then Itachi remembered why he knew how old Sasuke was. Assuming it was the real Sasuke… oh hell, Itachi wasn't sure he even cared that much at this point. He didn't really have anything of worth left to lose, and really, any version of Sasuke in pain made his heart ache.

Especially when he was the one who had caused it.

At least this time he was able to figure out how to fix it…

"Oh right, I missed your birthday, didn't I. My bad. I'll make it up to you…"

"That's not it," Sasuke said flatly. He was suddenly sounding a lot more like how he had sounded the last few times Itachi had spoken to him. Angry, and miserable. Others might have read it as "emotionless", but Itachi knew it was no such thing.

But if Itachi temporarily forgetting about Sasuke's birthday wasn't what had set his little brother off, then Itachi had no idea what he could have said that would upset his brother to this degree.

Itachi was lost.

"…What did I do then?" he asked.

Sasuke spun and stared at him like he had declared himself to be Tsuchikage.

Itachi sighed. "You're upset. The only thing that has happened in the last few minutes before you became upset was me talking, so obviously I'm the one who just upset you. How did I upset you?"

"…"

Well that wasn't exactly helpful. "Use your words little brother," Itachi said, poking him in the head, ignoring Sasuke's subsequent adorable flailing at his hand. "I know they say that high-level shinobi can read your mind, but unless we're talking Yamanaka, usually that's an exaggeration."

Sasuke snorted, seemingly despite himself. "Like chunin is that high."

Itachi froze.

Okay, now that was just plain insulting.

"Chunin?" Itachi asked incredulously, then started to laugh. "Like a chunin could have broken out of that prison the way I did. That doesn't even make any sense. Not that any of this makes any sense. I'm walking down the streets of Konoha, and I'm not…" he trailed off as he registered Sasuke's expression.

Sasuke had abandoned sulking in favour of gaping at him.

"What the fuck did they _do_ to you, aniki?" he asked softly.

Itachi blinked.

"I… I don't know." He shook his head. "I should be _dead_. I was _supposed_ to be dead," he said mostly to himself, but judging by the sharp intake of breath, Sasuke had heard him loud and clear.

Itachi turned and stared at him.

"Are you even real?" he asked, before he could think better of it.

There was a sudden sharp pain across his cheek, and Itachi blinked.

"Did you seriously just _slap_ me?"

Sasuke looked somewhat guilty, but he lifted his chin stubbornly to look Itachi in the eyes.

"Couldn't slap you if I wasn't real, now could I? Besides," he shifted his stance a little uneasily. "You were talking all crazy."

Well there was another vote for the 'insanity' option, though perhaps, Itachi mused, possible figments of his imagination shouldn't get a vote in that particular poll.

Though really, if figments of his imagination were calling him crazy, then maybe they had a point.

"Technically," said Itachi in a patient instructing tone he had almost forgotten how to use, "you could still slap me, and I'd think I'd feel it if this was a genjutsu." He snorted. "Though seriously, what are you, a pre-teen civilian girl? Slapping? Seriously?"

Sasuke smirked a little shakily. "Yeah? Well if this was a genjutsu designed to cause you pain, then wouldn't I use something a lot more hardcore than a slap?"

Itachi shrugged. "Well yeah, unless you wanted to lull me into a false sense of security," he said, like it didn't matter.

He started walking again, and Sasuke jogged to keep up with him.

The thing about genjutsu was that it messed with your perceptions. Of any sensory stimulus. But there were a few things that only the very greatest of genjutsu masters could get right, and even then, only if they had been paying _very_ close attention indeed.

Especially when it came to taste, since that was subjective, and involved both the tastebuds and the olfactory sense…

Suddenly, Itachi had an idea.

A wonderful, perfect idea.

"Hey Sasuke," he said carefully, "is that dango stand still there around the corner?"

Itachi wondered if exposure to him was going to get Sasuke's expression stuck on "what the fuck!?"

He wondered if it made him a bad person that that thought made him feel a little warm inside.

A half-forgotten emotion was starting to arise in Itachi. It was the joy of harmlessly tormenting a younger sibling.

Five minutes later, and Itachi had a plate of fresh dango in front of him.

Sasuke had fortunately had some money on him.

It had been some time since Itachi had eaten dango from this particular stand.

So when it tasted even _better_ than he remembered, he was rather startled.

More proof that this wasn't just a genjutsu. As taste-based genjutsus were generally known to be ridiculously hard to create, the few ninja who specialised in them tended to _only_ do these. Some genjutsu cheated and used memories of the sensation, but since this actually tasted better, then Itachi had real reason to believe that this was a genuine first-hand experience.

Especially since he also sorta almost burnt his mouth with the first one he tasted.

"…wow. I knew you had a sweet tooth, but _dayum_…" Itachi looked up to see a shinobi he only barely recognised.

"Hello Shiranui-san," he said.

Shiranui Genma's brows raised. "Uhhh since when were we that formal?"

Itachi shrugged non-commitally, ignoring Sasuke's stare.

Shiranui Genma half-heartedly shrugged in return. "Well, just was going to say that I'm glad you came back alright. I heard a rumour that shit got pretty real."

Itachi barely restrained himself from laughing.

"Things got a little… interesting," he said.

Shiranui Genma smirked. "They tend to do that. Still, glad you're okay."

Itachi shrugged. 'Okay' was relative.

Still, he wasn't dead, and that was generally a good start…

"I'm starting to think that this is maybe not a genjutsu," Itachi said in a purposefully bland tone to see how Genma would react.

Genma blinked and rolled his ever-present senbon needle from one corner of his mouth to the other and back as he considered the implications of that statement. "Well shit, I thought your cousin was exaggerating."

Itachi ignored the vehement shaking of Sasuke's head that was going on just to one side.

"You seem… surprisingly calm, all things considered," Genma offered after a pause.

Itachi shrugged.

"I'm told I don't have a very expressive face," he said. Let Genma take that as he would.

"…no shit." Genma didn't really seem to know what to say to that, and Itachi was unsurprised when Genma made his excuses and left soon-afterwards. No doubt to spread the word that Itachi had cracked.

Itachi realised then that he was starting to honestly think of all of the people he had encountered as being real.

As he and Sasuke left the dango stand for what Itachi could only assume was the Uchiha district, Itachi mused over this.

Not genjutsu, not dead, unlikely that he had gone mad… Itachi knew what the Uchiha family madness looked like. Unless he was somehow special, his distinct lack of need for a stage for his monologues was a good key clue that he hadn't succumbed to the family megalomania.

So what the hell had happened to him?

"Oh, you made it back then, Itachi."

Itachi turned, and saw two people he had never honestly expected to see alive again.

Even though Sasuke had said that they were alive…

The sight of his mother and Shisui standing at the gates of the Uchiha district, obviously waiting for them. Shisui smiling, his mother more reserved, but her stance relaxed and welcoming, just like she had always looked when he had come home from missions.

Sasuke broke out into a smile, and ran up to chat excitedly to Shisui, who apparently had just returned home from a mission. His mother's eyes sparkled as she ruffled the hair of her youngest, before beckoning to Itachi to come closer.

What followed then was a blur of small talk, and getting Itachi "temporarily" settled in his old room until he felt "better" (apparently he had an apartment somewhere normally), and a dinner that was comprised of favourite dishes that Itachi had almost forgotten he had, since he had not eaten many of them since that day when he was 13.

Later, as he lay in the bed of his childhood room, listening to the sounds of his brother sleeping in the room next door, Itachi decided.

Maybe this wasn't real.

He was starting to not care.

….

_A/N: Hey guys, sorry for the break. Had some bad health issues that turned into needing surgery. But hey, back now. _


	8. Chapter 8

Itachi eventually gave up on trying to sleep at about 3am.

Insomnia wasn't a new thing for him. It never happened on missions, because on missions every second of sleep was essential, crucial, and other words that all amounted to 'an unrested shinobi is a sloppy shinobi, and a sloppy shinobi is a dead shinobi'.

After missions though?

After mission insomnia was a rather different story.

At the near-silent dinner the night before, the near-silent dinner that had been full of his mother _not asking_ what had happened, Sasuke occasionally opening his mouth, getting out half a syllable but then thinking better of it, and Itachi not bothering to open his mouth at all, Itachi had taken care to note where his mother kept the tea.

It was a minor detail, but it had felt like an important one, especially since the place hadn't changed since he was a child.

More evidence that this was real, especially since the tea had been in a canister that Itachi didn't recognise. Why have one detail the same, and the other different? Especially since the canister looked a few years old at least, and obviously well-loved by his mother since it had a small chip on one corner, though it was in a colour Itachi knew his father favoured more- a dull crimson not far removed from blood or the Sharingan.

He had yet to see his father. Itachi was honestly more than a little guiltily relieved about that. The relationship between his father and himself had always been… complicated.

But paying attention to details like that, and the way his mother still _very slightly_ hesitated when rising from the seiza kneel due to the leg injury that had ended her jonin career (Itachi had never asked for the exact details of it, because whenever it came up his mother's practiced unexpression tended to start appearing as though it had been carved from marble), and the fact that the drapes had all changed colour, but the little figurines were mostly the same, barring a few new ones and...

Itachi was getting more and more indication that this really was real, what he was seeing.

Genjutsu just weren't this…

Detailed.

Fifteen minutes later, Itachi was sitting on the roof, letting his teacup keep his hands warm as steam rose up into the night sky.

Since he hadn't really bothered to hide his outline on the roof, he was unsurprised when he was joined a few minutes later.

"Can't sleep?" Shisui's voice was sympathetic, and oh so nostalgic.

Itachi shrugged.

Shisui sat next to him, and they sat together silently for a while.

"I've missed you," Itachi admitted after about forty-five minutes of looking up at the stars and sipping his tea.

"Can you talk about it?" Shisui asked him, meaning, 'is it classified?'

"No," said Itachi, meaning, 'If I told you about it, you'd think I was completely stark raving mad.'

Shisui, being Shisui, caught his second meaning from Itachi's tone. Itachi could tell by the way he stiffened, ever so slightly.

Itachi sighed inwardly. He had almost forgotten how perceptive Shisui had been of his moods.

"I don't want to talk about it just now," he said firmly, still gazing out over the dark roof-tops.

"Alright Itachi. I'll let it go," Shisui replied. The unspoken 'for now' sat loudly unacknowledged between the both of them. "If you try and get some sleep."

Itachi nodded, but didn't immediately move.

Shisui sighed. "Now, Itachi. Aunt Mikoto is worried."

Itachi scanned for chakra signatures, and found that his mother was, indeed, awake, judging by how he could feel her pacing in the room below.

Itachi felt an odd wash of guilt. His mother had attempted to make conversation after dinner, but he had brushed her off. He wasn't sure how one made small talk with someone who you had beheaded when you last saw them.

Especially when it was his mother.

"I'm not a child," he retorted, to distract himself from that line of thought.

Shisui almost smirked. "You're whining like one."

"Am not," Itachi replied with a ghost of a smile and an exaggerated whiny tone that would have probably made some of Itachi's acquaintance do a double-take. It was an old game of theirs that they had played sometimes. Since his father had been so strict with Itachi's emotional training, Shisui had taken it upon himself to make sure that Itachi a) knew what normal children sounded like so that he could properly mimic one when undercover on missions, and b) to give Itachi a chance to vent every once in a while.

Shisui's smile was a little more genuine this time- Itachi could see a measure of relief in his cousin's eyes.

"Go to sleep Itachi," he repeated. "We can talk tomorrow, if you like. I for one need some rest after my latest mission."

This time, Itachi just nodded, and shunshinned down to his room.

He lay on his futon, and went to sleep, hoping futilely, as he often did, that he would not dream.

Though if this were a dream, and then he experienced a dream within a dream… Itachi scoffed at the circular pattern of his thoughts.

He settled himself with a breathing exercise he had perfected on missions, and this time, thankfully, he dropped off to sleep.

Back on the roof, Shisui blinked. As an expert on the shunshin, he tended to half-consciously pay attention to peoples' techniques when doing the jutsu.

Since when had Itachi been able to focus enough on the shunshin to do that without handseals?

Still, no one had ever accused his cousin of being anything but clever. Shisui had always known that if pushed, Itachi could have been a far more skilled shinobi than he already was.

But something had always held his cousin back.

Putting these thoughts aside for later, Shisui went in search of his own bed. Mission: Pry Foolish Younger Cousin Off Roof Before Aunt Mikoto Starts Fretting Properly (and that last bit was important, because when Aunt Mikoto started Fretting Properly, then so did everyone else with a sense of self-preservation,) was an unqualified success. So Shisui could afford to get some rest before attacking his next, more long term mission.

Figuring out what the _hell_ had been done to Itachi so he could start planning out how exactly he was going to rip the perpetrators limb from limb.

With input from Aunt Mikoto, of course. She might not be an active field jonin anymore, but if he left her out, then she would make him Regret it.

With Prejudice.


	9. Chapter 9

Uchiha Mikoto was Worried, said the whispers.

And they were whispers, because no one was brave enough to talk about the Uchiha matriarch behind her back if they thought she could hear them.

One day, Mikoto thought to herself, she was really going to have to explain to a few of the clan that a) whispers were actually far easier to hear than quiet murmuring, and b) regardless, she could read lips.

Or perhaps not. After all, it was so _useful_ knowing exactly what the gossips were saying at any given time.

Suffice to say, Mikoto heard the whispers, and saw no need to correct them.

The fact was, Mikoto wasn't worried, per se.

Mikoto was close to frantic.

Her eldest son, her son that she had tried so hard to support, to keep together and sane all of these years despite stiff opposition, her firstborn who had taken to heart her early words that Sasuke was his to protect and cherish…

Someone had _hurt_ him.

Dear Minato had briefed her personally in his office over tea. The two of them had bonded after Kushina's death as the two who had known her the best, and so missed her the most. When she had seen him struggling a little with juggling his Hokage responsibilities with taking care of a newborn, she had offered advice from one parent to another, and eventually had talked him into hiring one of her elder cousins as a nurse-maid and bodyguard.

At the time, Fugaku had told her how impressed he was at her manoeuvring. He was pleased that his wife was close to the Hokage, because he thought that that meant that she would leverage dear Minato to do his bidding. All for the good of the Uchiha clan, of course.

Mikoto had thought it adorable that Fugaku thought he knew anything about _manoeuvring_. He might be the Head of the Uchiha, but that was because she had chosen him. He was a good leader, with a charismatic way of speaking, (for an Uchiha) and a fine shinobi, and back in those days, he had shown no signs of the family madness.

Perfect for siring children, or so she had thought.

So when her father, the previous Clan Head had started talking about how it was time for Mikoto to be married off to an appropriate cousin (the Uchiha clan was thankfully large enough that there were plenty of second-cousins and cousins by marriage to choose from so they could more easily avoid the Hyuuga problem), her mother had taken her aside, and shown her the ways to ensure that she had chosen wisely. The most important thing, her mother had cautioned her, was that though in public she must always appear the dutiful traditional wife, her most important duty was the preservation of the Uchiha clan.

By whatever means necessary.

In another world, another lifetime, there had been another Uchiha Mikoto who had not been good friends with the Hokage. That Mikoto had seen an agent of the enemy Senju in the Hokage seat, an agent who was old, wily, and had re-seized power rather than giving it up to someone younger and more able. That Mikoto had seen a Hokage plotting against her clan. So when her Fugaku came to her saying that the elders thought that a Coup was the only answer, she had supported him with everything in her being, until she had realised that she had over-reached, putting her son in an untenable position, and so had accepted the consequences of her actions. Hoping the next generation would be able to fix her mistakes.

But this was not that Uchiha Mikoto.

This Uchiha Mikoto was a widow, because when she had questioned her Fugaku's reasoning, had pointed out that the clan was not as alienated as he said, that Minato had offered them concession after concession at her bidding so long as they led to integrating the Uchiha better with the rest of the village after those… _rumours_ after the Kyuubi attack…

Fugaku had shown her that he had forgotten that she wasn't some _civilian_.

His death had not been by her hand, but to say she had no hand in it would be… misleading.

She had done it for her sons. Her sons that she obviously loved better than Fugaku had, for he had tried to turn Itachi into an unfeeling weapon. He might have succeeded, had Mikoto not had such a staunch ally in dear Minato. Why, she only had to confide in him that she wanted better for her eldest than for him to be another iteration of that poor Hatake boy, and she had not needed to explain further.

Truly, Kushina's taste in men had been exemplary- Mikoto would have to congratulate her when they met again in the next life.

In any case, Mikoto had worked _so hard_ to ensure that her sons would be able to grow up strong, but well-rounded, so that they would have hopes and dreams, and not just be mindless killing machines. She wanted a strong Uchiha Clan, not to be in charge of a family of Root.

But now someone had _done something_ to her Itachi. Dear Minato had said that the current theory was some kind of advanced brainwashing.

Mikoto would never have believed it if she had not seen the lost look in her son's eyes when Sasuke (and even he had looked uncharacteristically grim- he too could see the changes in his brother) had walked him back from the hospital. She knew that sometimes missions went bad. She had been a jonin kunoichi herself, she knew the risks.

But all of the rationalisations and foreknowledge in the world could not have prepared her for how _haunted_ Itachi had looked when he had seen her. He had gone through the motions over dinner, and then when she had tried to draw him aside, he had made motions that in another person would have involved flinching and running for their room.

Mikoto was startled.

Her boys had _never_ hesitated to talk to her after a mission, no matter how bad it had been.

For Itachi to have shut down entirely like this…

At least he was still talking to Shisui. She had felt them both on the roof the night before, and the next morning, Shisui had come discreetly to speak to her.

He had reported without her prompting him.

Shisui was a good boy. There were good reasons why he was her favourite nephew.

"Whatever happened has thrown Itachi for a loop. He acted like he hadn't seen me in years, despite the fact that he saw me off on my mission six weeks ago. I know you're worried Aunt." Shisui had paused then, clearly choosing his words. "I think it's warranted."

Mikoto nodded grimly, and served them both tea, using the blue ceramic that she knew Shisui favoured.

"I don't have to tell you to keep an eye on him," she had said in reply.

Shisui nodded, and stared moodily out the window as his tea cooled.

"When I have something to tell you, I will," he promised. He didn't mention the seal-less shunshin, yet. There might be a logical explanation for that yet, which didn't involve whatever had Itachi walking about looking as though he was surrounded by ghosts.

Some might not have noticed, since Itachi was not naturally expressive, but his family could tell.

"Have you thought about what to tell Sasuke?" Shisui asked.

Mikoto sighed, something that she would never do in public unless for dramatic effect. "We tell him what he needs to know. Someone hurt his brother, and he needs his support. He needs to know that all of us will support him." Mikoto drew herself up, eyes flashing, and Shisui had to resist a flinch when her teacup cracked in her hand. "We will _find out_ who did this to him, and then there will be _retribution_," she stated baldly. "Help me Shisui."

"With pleasure, Aunt," Shisui replied. "In the meantime, though, I think perhaps Itachi needs his own space. He looks like he keeps expecting Fugaku to walk in the door. He's not relaxed here, and that's what he needs- relaxation."

Mikoto frowned. "I don't want him alone in that apartment of his. What if something happens? What if he…" she trailed off, rather than say what she really feared.

Shisui thought on this for a moment.

"Well, we could always have Sasuke stay with him. That way there's someone there, but Itachi won't feel like he's being watched."

Mikoto regarded her nephew for a moment and then nodded. It went without saying that Sasuke would be in no danger from Itachi, no matter how confused he seemed.

Taking care of Sasuke was part of who Itachi _was._

No amount of brainwashing could possibly change that. Itachi would never do something to Sasuke that he didn't think was for Sasuke's benefit.

"It's decided then," said Mikoto. "I'll insist they have dinner here every night, but otherwise, I'll give him some space. You think it's for the best?" she asked, the expression in her eyes telling Shisui that she already knew the answer.

"Yes, Aunt." Shisui didn't have to tell Mikoto that for some reason Itachi was doing his best to specifically avoid her. Even if she had been only a civilian mother, that much would have been obvious.

"Very well. I'll give him at least some space, but if there's no improvement after a few weeks, we'll speak again."

As Shisui left, Mikoto carefully set aside her cracked teacup, and poured herself fresh tea into another cup.

She would do anything for her sons.

No matter how long it took, she would make sure that Itachi remembered that.

….


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

The apartment was strange, and Itachi had never lived there before (he _knew _this, despite his family's assurances that he was wrong). Since he had no memories of such a place, it was rather odd being led to an apartment that perfectly matched his tastes. Some of the knick-knacks Itachi even recognised as his belongings that he had left behind him when he had fled Konoha after the massacre – heirlooms and keep-sakes that looked older and slightly more worn than the last time he had seen them, though the things neatly placed about (not scattered, Itachi was more precise than that) were not limited to these. In particular, Itachi noted a slightly wobbly example of calligraphy with Sasuke's hanko signature framed on one wall (a haiku that Itachi had long been fond of), a sinfully-soft blanket on the corner of a _very_ comfortable couch, and a very nice fan with a flock of ravens painted onto it in red and black. Itachi had no recollection of these items whatsoever, and they were not things he would have procured for himself. They were however, things he could easily imagine being gifted or encouraged to buy by people who knew his tastes. Again, Itachi was struck by the fact that this level of detail added evidence that his experiences here were real, and not the product of his own, or someone else's mind.

The oddest thing however, was that Itachi was not unfamiliar with the building. Before, he knew that it had contained one Uzumaki Naruto's apartment (back when Itachi had been in ANBU, the Uzumaki Protection Detail was a consistently standing mission that those who required a bit of downtime were rotated into). Considering that in this reality (wherever it might be sourced,) Namikaze Minato was still alive, Itachi was unsurprised to discover that the jinchuriki was not his neighbour. To his carefully concealed delight, he did not even need to subtly interrogate Sasuke as to the location of the kid, as "That Idiot Namikaze" frequently came up whenever Sasuke talked about his Academy classes. Apparently Sasuke had a long-held rivalry with the Hokage's son, and freely started complaining in an informative way about how even though Naruto rarely paid attention in class, and occasionally skipped, he was still able to keep up "annoyingly" well with Sasuke, (who as in Itachi's memories was still the top Academy student in his class).

Itachi was even more delighted when he figured out that Sasuke's annoyance was mostly for show, and that unlike the often bitter but close rivalry he had seen before, here, Sasuke and Naruto seemed to fight for the fun of it, and to drive everyone else around them a bit insane.

(Itachi was especially amused when he realised later that some of the rivalry was actually played-up to cover for the fact that Sasuke sometimes acted as an alibi for Naruto when he was pulling off a particularly elaborate prank – apparently none of the Academy teachers had yet cottoned-on that the two were partners in crime.)

It was good (a relief really,) to see his normally foolish little brother actually showing some taste in his associates. Naruto was the one person that Itachi had always trusted to have his brother's best interests in heart, and Itachi suspected that with his father the Yondaime being around to be a good influence, Naruto might even be _better_ for his brother than he remembered. Last time, Itachi knew, Naruto had only cared so much for his brother because they had been team-mates, and the kid was nothing if not clingy like a particularly brightly-coloured burr when it came to people that he liked.

On the other hand, this time, it sounded like Naruto was almost as popular as Sasuke. So the fact that Sasuke and he still had a friendship, (his brother could call it rivals all he wanted, but Itachi could tell the difference,) even now, before they were likely to be put onto a team together…

Itachi was very pleased indeed.

Memories of the building in his past life aside, Itachi had initially been somewhat surprised that his mother and Shisui had apparently conspired together and decided that it would be best for him to live in "his own" apartment. Their logic did not at first quite make sense to him, as he knew that both of them wanted to keep an eye on him- after all, the consensus seemed to be that he was unstable, with the agreed-upon story apparently being brainwashing (Itachi had his doubts about this explanation, but saw no need to correct those who believed it, for now).

However, once he realised that Sasuke was moving in with him for a while, he felt a little grudging respect at their shrewdness. It was well-established in both worlds apparently (and backed up by his most recent psych-eval from his debriefing with the Yamanaka) that protecting Sasuke was one of Itachi's core principles. Thus, Itachi could see that they intended to set him at ease, and have someone who would report immediately if his behaviour began to deviate from the norm. By watching his mother's expressions, and reading in between the lines of her words, Itachi could tell that Sasuke was supposed to be his anchor.

Itachi knew all of this, and yet, this did not make the strategy any less effective. Itachi had almost forgotten how good his mother was at manipulation.

Almost.

Having Sasuke practically within arm's reach, being able to watch over him, even as his little brother carefully watched him was a luxury that Itachi had desperately missed. Actually having the time to teach Sasuke all the things he wanted, whenever they wanted, was a luxury that Itachi had never had before, even in his previous life, barring one time when he had been put on leave until his broken collar-bone healed when Itachi was eleven.

Itachi had always loved teaching his little brother things, just for Sasuke's adorable expressions.

(Just like he had remembered, only more vivid, and mixed with occasional semi-successful attempts to revert to a controlled Uchiha mask- again, Itachi realised that this level of detail meant the theory that this was all a genjutsu _made no sense_).

Itachi loved Sasuke's adorable expressions.

Sasuke's smile whenever Itachi could say 'yes', (yes, he would teach him, yes, he would spend time with him, yes, Itachi valued his little brother more than anyone else in the world, no matter if he was entirely convinced it was real or not).

Sasuke's gritted teeth of determination whenever he struggled to acquire a new skill.

Sasuke's smirk whenever he accomplished a new hard-won skill (and it was always hard-won, because Itachi was an exacting teacher who expected perfection before he would say, "well done").

Sasuke's eyes glinting whenever he (foolishly) thought he had pulled one over on his big brother.

And of course, Itachi's not-so-secret favourite expression.

Sasuke's scowl whenever Itachi tormented him.

Foolish little brothers could be so much fun to poke.

Sadly for Itachi, he was not able to properly enjoy the next time Sasuke pouted.

"But Kaa-san," Sasuke whined, at dinner four days after he and Itachi had moved to the apartment, "I want to spend more time with Itachi! He'll get lonely if I'm not around all day."

"Sasuke," his mother said calmly, "you skipped three days of the Academy already last week. This is the year you are supposed to graduate. If you keep skipping, you're not only going to lose your top spot at the Academy, you might also have trouble graduating at all."

"But…" Sasuke protested, looking half-hopefully, half-worriedly at Itachi.

As pleased as Itachi was that Sasuke wanted to spend more time with him, he knew that if he ever wanted to get any peace whatsoever, he was going to have to put his foot down now. He _knew_ his temptation to cling to Sasuke would be seen as potentially suspicious, and the last thing Itachi wanted was to be watched even more closely than he was already. More than that, he most certainly did not want to be the one to hold Sasuke back. No. Never that.

"Sasuke," he said calmly, speaking for the first time at dinner that night, and causing the entire table (his mother, Shisui and his little brother) to turn to look at him. "I'll be fine. I don't want you skipping class for me."

Sasuke's pout grew more pronounced, but Itachi remained firm.

"Besides," he added, "I start my… counselling," (sympathetically-phrased interrogation really, but now was not the time to be hair-splitting on that point,) "sessions soon anyway."

Sasuke's lip trembled a bit, causing all three senior Uchiha to carefully hide their amusement that he thought he could pull one over on them with such a civilian trick.

Rather than bothering to tell him to pack it in, Shisui pointed out that he had decided to take some leave, since he "was about due for a holiday anyway."

Upon realising that Itachi was unlikely to be left alone in his absence, Sasuke relented.

A little, at least. He looked as though he might have whined if he had thought it would be an effective tactic, but their mother had given Sasuke a _look_ and he had quickly subsided.

It was so strange, Itachi thought, to have members of his family showing such concern for him. Even before the massacre, Itachi had always felt as though his own family had bought too much into the propaganda that his father had spread about him- that he was a genius. A perfect shinobi. The pipeline between the village and the Clan.

Sometimes he had thought perhaps his mother worried, but she had always seemed mostly resigned to his child-eyes (and yes, he realised now that despite his experience and skills with murder and subterfuge at the time he _had_ nonetheless still been a child). Now, perhaps because he was a lot better at reading people, perhaps because she was not attempting to hide it as much, (or even, he thought in the darkest most secret corner of his mind, because for some reason his mother just loved him better when someone else was writing the world he experienced,) he could see the deep concern that leaked around the edges of her proper Uchiha matriarch mask.

He still was not sure if he believed in the events happening before his eyes. It all seemed too good to be true, in the very worst of senses. Itachi knew from experience that the world did not exist to give him nice things. Expecting good things to happen to him was something that he had learnt long ago was a dangerous thing to do, because it gave him hope.

Considering that the last time he had really hoped for something before his death it had been for Sasuke to grow up to be a worthy, strong shinobi who could kill Itachi and find closure…

Well, suffice to say that Itachi was used to profound disappointment.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

Perhaps because he was waiting patiently for the trap to spring, despite (because) the growing evidence that Itachi was in an impossibly idyllic scenario that he could not have hoped for beyond his wildest dreams, Itachi could not relax, and had frequent insomnia, the likes of which he had rarely suffered before.

Because of this, drinking tea in the dark of the too-early morning hours with Shisui on the rooftop was an almost-nightly ritual.

The same night that Sasuke was told that he would have to return to the Academy, Itachi took a chance and did something that he had badly wanted to do for a number of nights before.

Opening up to Shisui.

Before Shisui's suicide, Itachi had always trusted him. His elder cousin was his only confidant, and they had grown especially close in the time when they had realised that they might be the last two loyal fighting-age Uchiha left.

So, Itachi decided to test this Shisui. See if he could trust him like the one he had known before.

He had considered the plan over the last few days, and decided that there was little risk in this plan.

The worst case scenario would not put him in a worse position than he already potentially was in, be this real or not.

The two of them had been sitting together companionably for a good twenty minutes when Itachi decided to go forward with his little test.

"Hypothetically," Itachi said without preamble, "if you woke up in a foreign dungeon with your last memory being of dying, and then you keep seeing people that you know for a fact are dead, some of whom you know you killed, because you killed them with your own two hands, then what do you assume has happened?"

Shisui, who had clearly been expecting another hour of the two of them sitting mostly silently together on the rooftop together, had not twitched or tensed like a civilian or a genin might have, but Itachi knew he had still taken him pretty thoroughly off guard.

_Good_, Itachi thought. This way there was a better chance that Shisui's reactions would be more honest, since if he intended manipulation, he would have to think up a strategy on the fly.

"Hypothetically?" Shisui questioned him, his tone carefully flat, looking him straight in the eyes.

"Hypothetically," Itachi returned, tone equally measured as he held his elder cousin's gaze.

Shisui considered him for a few long moments, then looked back out across the dark silhouettes of the nearby rooftops.

"The theory that I was briefed with is that you were brainwashed by the enemy," Shisui said bluntly.

Itachi sighed. So that was how he wanted to play it. Still, that answer was not necessarily only consistent with Shisui lying to him. Thus far no theory that Itachi had come up with was without flaws. The brainwashing one was an idea he had discarded earlier, and he decided that it would not hurt to explain his reasoning.

"That had occurred to me as an option," he thus admitted to his cousin, "but then there's a slight problem with that theory."

"Ah?" Shisui raised an eyebrow.

"Detail," said Itachi. "I assure you, that the sheer level of detail that is involved in this genjutsu, if that is indeed what it is, including details that _no one_ could possibly think of as important- I know how Hoshigake Kisame takes his tea. I could give you a list of villages where it's impossible to get pocky, and I know Ame like the back of my hand. Things like this, and I have 8 years' worth of it in my head, Shisui. I can remember what Konoha would be like if the Yondaime had died when the Kyuubi attacked, and the Sandaime was reinstated. I remember Sasuke being…"Itachi inhaled a slightly choked-off breath, and realised to his shock that he was crying. He hadn't cried since he was 13 and he had murdered his parents and damaged Sasuke permanently… and watched as Shisui had torn out his own eye before throwing himself from the cliff into the river.

And now, since he had woken up, after he died, after Sasuke had tried (and failed, poor foolish little brother,) to kill him, it was like none of that had happened.

Well when he put it like that, Itachi supposed that he had reason enough for feeling a bit… emotionally turbulent. Moreover, he realised with the part of his brain that was dedicated to all things shinobi, including manipulation, showing weakness here suited his purposes far better than not.

If this wasn't Shisui, then they might think that he had broken, and thus be less careful around him, or even cut to the chase.

If this really was Shisui…

His cousin was one of the few that Itachi had ever trusted enough to show his deeper emotions. His honest reaction solidified his cover if this was false, and was something he would have allowed anyway if this was true.

(Sometimes, Itachi wondered what it was like to not hide his suspicions with lies based on honesty, or half-truths, or outright bald-faced bullshit. It had been so long since he had had the luxury of a situation like that, where he could just be honest with no other intentions or plans or agendas to further, no underneath his underneath that Itachi wasn't sure he actually _remembered_ how to just have a reaction without a voice in the back of his head comparing it to his cover. Sometimes, Itachi had to admit to himself that he was more than a little bit fucked up.)

"Kami above," Shisui breathed, his eyes widening in alarm as his normally stoic cousin went from crying silently to chuckling hysterically, the most disturbing part being how _quiet_ he kept himself, unconsciously keeping himself from waking those sleeping (especially Sasuke, always Sasuke, Shisui knew that no matter how twisted up his cousin had become, Itachi would cheerfully cut out his own eyes if he thought Sasuke needed it).

Shisui reached out (slowly, so as not to startle him,) and pulled Itachi against his shoulder in an awkward embrace.

"Breathe, little cousin," Shisui whispered, using a term of endearment he hadn't used in years as he gently rocked Itachi against himself. "Breathe."

"Have I gone mad, Shisui?" Itachi asked him, in between gasping breaths. "Is this a dream? An illusion? None of it makes any sense. It's like I lived an entire life, and now I'm in someone else's. Some other Itachi's life…" Shisui felt Itachi suddenly stiffen.

An inkling of a thought had occurred to Itachi then. And like all inklings of thoughts that Itachi had, it took milliseconds for him to explore the idea in its entirety, compare it to his previously held hypotheses, and then reject or hold onto it based on the evidence he had available to him.

Shisui waited patiently as his cousin got distracted. Itachi had been acting particularly erratic since he had returned, and if he needed a moment to gather his thoughts, Shisui would give it to him.

Perhaps given a chance to gather his thoughts, Itachi would tell him something that would allow Shisui to help him.

Meanwhile, Itachi's brain practically buzzed with inadvertently realised implications. A stupid, impossible idea had occurred to him.

But as Itachi had learned, sometimes, the world did not make sense, because one did not have vital information.

And in a situation like that, the only thing one could do was be open to possibilities and new intelligence.

This was a mindset that had saved his life more than once, because it allowed Itachi to be infinitely adaptable despite his tendency towards carefully controlled logic.

(It was also a mindset that had occasionally got him into a great deal of trouble, but that was more because Itachi sometimes completely missed cues that an individual with a more normal upbringing might find obvious.)

Itachi had not often had time to read fiction when he was a child, but as a missing-nin, he had often had long periods with little or nothing to fill his time with except for training. Especially when his illness had begun to creep up on him, he had developed a more passive hobby to while away the time with, and that involved reading whatever books he could get his hands upon. Itachi preferred technical manuals and histories if given choice in reading material, but there had been that one time he had 'borrowed' a science-fiction novel from Tobi, which had included a number of short stories.

One of those stories had introduced the concept of alternate universes. 'If'-worlds. Worlds that were extremely similar to the known one, differing only after lynch-pin events had occurred.

What if…

What if…

It was a completely insane thought.

Itachi knew this. He knew it like he knew that all things considered, he was not exactly a good picture of mental health.

But Itachi realised that the more he considered it, the more it felt right.

It explained… everything. The hypothesis fit the facts as he knew them.

He had no idea of how this could have happened. He had no idea _why_ this would have happened.

But all the same, Itachi suddenly realised, that this? This was the only explanation that made sense.

After all, once evidence had been collected, and other theories discarded, then the remaining explanation for the facts must be the best one available.

Somehow, he had taken over the life of another Itachi.

This wasn't his world.

"What is it, Itachi?" Shisui asked him, sounding worried, bringing Itachi back into the moment.

And Itachi realised then that he could never tell anyone of this theory, because then they would _know_ he was mad, because there was no way to prove this something that he felt, gut-deep, was true. Not even his favourite cousin, who in this world (this _new_ world, this second chance, ripe with possibilities), was _alive_.

For the first time, possibly in years, Itachi relaxed, resting his forehead against Shisui's shoulder.

"Shisui, I've been too full of hubris," he said slowly. "It must be that there's something or being out there that is stronger than a mere bearer of the Sharingan." Itachi, like all good liars, knew that the best lie was one with truth in it. If he wanted to avoid being declared mentally incompetent, then he was going to have to play this one carefully. "Because I feel like I've lived a whole other life." _True._ "Maybe I was an experiment." _Potentially true in both worlds- he didn't know what had sent him here._ "Maybe I was an accident." _Potentially true._ "Maybe I wasn't supposed to escape then." _Definitely true, from Sound's perspective._

But when taken together? All of those sentences created the lie that Itachi was going to have to swear to until his deathbed, in front of all manner of concerned counsellors and interrogators.

(And what luck, his first counselling session was tomorrow. Itachi could now relax even more, because he _finally_ had figured out the underneath of the underneath of his cover story – he was damaged, but going to be fine, and now Itachi had hope, _dangerous hope_ that this might even be true.)

Oh, and doubles of his family members. They would be the ones watching him the closest. Itachi's cover was going to have to be _perfect_ and in part, it was because he did not want them to worry.

(Second chance, second chance, Itachi was _not_ going to waste this.)

Shisui patted his back awkwardly, but Itachi could feel the tension that his carefully chosen words were inciting.

"…I think I'm going to need some time off," Itachi admitted. Time to recuperate. Time to gather information, so he could pretend to be this other Itachi. Time to learn about _why_ this world was so different from his, and to learn things that he _needed_ to get right to ensure he didn't blow his cover.

And most importantly:

Time to regain the confidence that had no doubt been lost in how mentally competent he appeared, as no doubt he had appeared deranged over the last few days to these people.

"Yamanaka Tsubaki spoke to me," Shisui stated, and Itachi could hear the relief in his tone since Itachi had calmed again. (Yes, relax cousin/not-my-cousin-but-close-enough-I-don't-care-because-I-missed-you.) "She said that it was unlikely that you would be allowed back on duty until you had undergone months counselling and mandatory psych testing."

Itachi nodded against Shisui's shoulder, and then looked up into his cousin's face, a wry smile on his lips.

"That may be for the best," he allowed, and truly, he was not just saying that, for it dovetailed nicely with his freshly-made plans. "How long did she think it would take?"

Shisui shook his head. "She said considering the depth of your trauma," he said rather bluntly, "it would at least be six months before they would let you take the testing." He smiled suddenly, though his eyes remained concerned. "But just think, that way you know for sure that you'll be around when Sasuke graduates the Academy, since that's only about four and a half months away."

Well there was an unexpected and unlooked-for bonus.

Last time, he had missed that particular milestone event.

(And considering that even before, to get his father to Sasuke's acceptance ceremony, Itachi had needed to resort to being _very blunt indeed_ to push a family member into acknowledging Sasuke on an occasion that he needed it, and after, Itachi had removed all chance of there being someone who might remember and be able to go… suffice to say, it would take a rather important emergency _indeed_ to keep Itachi from attending Sasuke's graduation this time around in person, rather than with a meticulously henged kage-bunshin.)

This time…

Itachi's smile shifted from wry to slightly more genuine.

Shisui smirked. "See? This is how I know you're going to be alright. You're still Sasuke's overly-doting big brother." He stood, and offered Itachi a completely unnecessary hand up.

"Come on, little cousin. We both need some sleep. With luck, things will look clearer in the morning."

Itachi accepted the hand, and allowed Shisui to escort him back to his bedroom, not bothering to pretend that he didn't notice that as had happened the last few nights his cousin was making sure that was where he was actually going.

As Itachi laid back down and began to drift off to sleep though however, he had a dark thought.

Perhaps Shisui was correct in that Itachi would be alright, and more importantly, be able to convince others that he was so.

But there was one thing that Shisui had wrong.

Itachi might still dote over Sasuke, in any form.

But he knew that he wasn't the same brother.

_Did it matter? Should it matter? Second chance, second chance, don't fuck it up this time._

These thoughts and others in a similar vein ran through Itachi's mind, but he squashed them ruthlessly.

Poorly-timed epiphany aside, this conversation was a test, to see if Shisui would keep his confidences, amongst other things. Itachi would have to wait and see what the outcome was.

It was then that he realised something that made his control over his already turbulent emotions (both real and exaggerated for Shisui's benefit – as usual, the best lies had a grounding of truth to them,) nearly slip.

Itachi had started to _hope_ again.

And that terrified him.


	12. Chapter 12

The next morning, when Itachi woke up, the first thing he saw was Sasuke's smile, a sight that still startled him, a sight that made him want to smile back. This was an innocent Sasuke. A Sasuke who didn't know what it was to expect the world to hurt him. A Sasuke who had not had his spirit or heart broken.

A Sasuke who didn't realise that his big brother had been replaced with a stranger.

Despite this, Itachi could see the small shadow in Sasuke's eyes. The shadow of worry.

Worry that Itachi realised was entirely on _his_ behalf.

Worry that was dimming Sasuke's smile.

Having caused the smile to go forever away once, Itachi had no desire to do it again.

If Sasuke ever realised that he was not the same big brother Itachi, then maybe…

Oh Kami. The consequences did not even bear thinking about. _Best_ case scenario, Itachi would have to go on the run again as a missing-nin, or be imprisoned as an imposter.

It was then, as he realised this, that Itachi made a decision.

If this was real, he needed to ensure that _no one_ ever doubted he was really Uchiha Itachi.

If this was real, then _this_ Sasuke needed the support of his big brother.

Itachi convincing everyone he was Itachi would thus kill two enemies with one jutsu.

Itachi's favourite kind of plan – a mutually beneficial one that achieved multiple goals.

Itachi was going to get the role right this time if it killed him.

For both their sakes.

Having come to this conclusion, Itachi accepted the cup of tea that his little brother had so thoughtfully poured for him, (so few people realised that Itachi was _not_ a morning person without his first cup of tea, since his sullenness tended to blur into his usual reserve,) drank it, and then offered to make breakfast for them both.

Sasuke's smile grew stronger when Itachi made him miso soup and onigiri with a diced tomato and parsley salad on the side.

(Itachi was onto his third cup of tea by the end making the food, but he could literally handle knives in his sleep, so it was no big deal.)

Good, thought Itachi. Sasuke's favourites were still the same. Now to figure out if _Itachi's_ favourites were also the same, before he tripped up on some vital fact he should know.

It was in this context, that Itachi heard a knock on the door, received a genin-delivered message, and learned his first counselling session was going to occur in two days.

Itachi didn't panic.

He didn't.

Panicking was for civilians and genin.

No, Itachi did not panic, but he _did_ realise that he needed to get his cover story right, and yesterday.

Unfortunately, Itachi could not go about asking questions about his cover.

He was going to have to be… subtle.

Somehow, he was going to have to figure out all the things that were common knowledge, without actually asking about it, because that would be a dead giveaway.

"Itachi? Are you…"

Itachi looked up from the message to see Sasuke hanging in the doorway, brow wrinkled.

Itachi tried not to find it too adorable, and then realised that Sasuke was concerned about him, and the urge to find the wrinkled brow cute immediately vanished.

"I'm fine. Just…" what would be a good word to use to describe how he felt about the impending counselling session that would not cause Sasuke to worry more? Itachi decided to not try to find one, and instead went for honesty. "It has been a long time since I last went to counselling."

Sasuke's brow-wrinkle deepened. "But, I thought… but you went to counselling after Father's death, and that was only five years ago."

"…" Itachi didn't respond to Sasuke aloud, and quickly looked away so that his brother couldn't see his face as one word ran through his mind.

_WHAT!?_

His father was dead? His father had been dead for five years?

Well, Itachi _had_ wondered why they had not run into each other yet.

Death was a pretty good reason for absence, he thought half-hysterically.

Wait, five years ago. Sasuke had just turned 12. Five years ago Sasuke was 7, which was when the Massacre had happened.

So wait…

What did this mean?

Was it significant that his father had died in the same year on both worlds?

Had the Coup been attempted?

It can't have. Itachi had seen how many Uchiha were walking about, and the citizens of Konoha did not seem to treat Uchiha like lepers (like they had at times just before the Massacre) so obviously there was no stigma. So no Coup.

But then why?

How?

So many questions, and Itachi could not ask a single one of them, because if he did, then Sasuke would immediately be suspicious, or worse, he would immediately know that Itachi was an imposter, and not the brother he had grown up with.

It was beyond frustrating.

"Itachi? Big brother? Are you alright?" Itachi looked up to see Sasuke reaching out a hand to him, but pausing, as though he knew better than to touch Itachi when he was upset like this.

Itachi supposed that maybe he did.

Itachi slowed his breathing, and then realised that he had been on the edge of a panic attack. Again. He _really_ had to get a handle on this shit before he got branded as being unstable.

If he was honest with himself, (though with this at least, he tried not to be,) Itachi knew that he was not a good picture of mental health even at the best of times.

But there was a difference between being not quite right in the head, and being out of control.

"Sorry," he said, looking down. "I…" inhale, exhale. "I'm fine."

Sasuke looked unconvinced.

"I can stay home from the Academy for a few more days..."

Itachi scoffed, and ruffled Sasuke's hair, entertained by how his brother slapped at his hands and squirmed like a cranky kitten trying to get away.

"No you can't. Mother would fillet me for letting you skive off," Itachi retorted. Then he shrugged. "Want me to walk you there?"

Itachi expected Sasuke to scowl at him, to tell Itachi that Sasuke wasn't a baby, and other such things.

Instead, Sasuke opened his mouth as though he was about to do just as Itachi had predicted, but then he paused, closed his mouth, and then after a moment, smiled.

"Sure. Come on Bro, or you'll make me late."

Huh, Itachi thought. It would seem that he had underestimated how little Sasuke wanted to let him out of his sight.

He carefully suppressed the smile that accompanied the sudden warm feeling in his chest at the thought.

He supposed that it didn't matter that Sasuke had called his bluff.

For one thing, time was something he had a great deal of at the moment.

For another, the Academy was in the exact opposite direction to the Records Library. Itachi needed an alibi, and if he sent a shadow clone under henge to the Library, his real self being in a place surrounded by people who could say he was there, including sensors, was simply sensible thinking.

He needed to figure out what the hell was the history of this world.

What was the same? What was different?

He needed to know, and yesterday.

On the way to the Academy, Itachi let (subtly encouraged) Sasuke to run ahead around a particular blind corner. Itachi knew that he was being watched, but also knew that if he timed it right, he could drop a clone in the bushes, and unless he was unlucky enough that his watcher was a Hyuuga, his watched wouldn't notice.

It was a risk, but it was a risk Itachi was willing to take.

He dropped the clone without missing a step, and kept walking as though nothing had happened as his clone masked itself, changed its appearance to that of a bland-looking chunin Itachi had seen at the hospital wearing a medic-nin patch, and shunshinned off to do Itachi's bidding.

Shadow clones were a pain, but oh-so useful.

Itachi was a little perturbed though when he realised just how much that jutsu had taken out of him. That felt like almost two thirds of his chakra, and it had only been one clone.

Right, that settled it.

As soon as he'd dropped his brother off at the Academy, Itachi was going to solidify his alibi by going to the training grounds and checking his conditioning.

Because he remembered how Sasuke had called him a chunin (which _technically_, he had never risen above in his other life, except that making ANBU captain meant that once he had left ANBU he would have been given an instant promotion when he left).

He hoped that his intuition on this was wrong.

But he was starting to get a sneaking suspicion that this body was not as badass as his previous one.

If that was so, then he would be fixing that.

Immediately.

Because even though this body felt a thousand times better than his old disease-ridden one, not being in the best condition that was within his ability to achieve irked him.

"Bye Big Brother, I'll see you later!" came Sasuke's voice, distracting Itachi from his thoughts.

He let a smile hit his face, and waved to his brother, as he entered the Academy with a gaggle of what looked like an entire generation of clan heirs.

Itachi wondered how much of that had been strategic, and then wondered if a civilian would find it weird that ninja clans would try to synch up giving birth to ensure their offspring had the best chance at being in a cohort of strong peers.

Speaking of peers…

A woman, about his age (well, his body's age at any rate,) with Inuzuka triangle tattoos on her face, wearing shorts and a white med-nin jacket was shooing an Inuzuka boy about Sasuke's age towards the Academy building. Itachi took a moment to admire her legs, which those shorts she wore displayed to perfection, and the long brown hair that was almost as long and well-kept as a Hyuuga's (an unusual trait in an Inuzuka- usually they tended towards short scruffy spikes).

Itachi nearly tripped over when he realised who it was- he hadn't seen her since they were children.

"Itachi?"

Moments later, he was engulfed in a furry hug that smelled like wet dog.

He resisted the urge to sneeze.

Then, before he had time to eel his way out of her grasp, she punched him.

Well, she tried to. Itachi caught her punch with slightly more effort than he remembered needing, (oh he was _so_ going to train, this had the potential to be _infuriating_,) and barely resisted the urge to smirk as she growled at him.

"You asshole!"

Itachi raised an eyebrow.

Now this might be interesting.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13:

Inuzuka Hana seethed as she attempted to extract her hand from Itachi's.

"Damnit Itachi!" she spat. "Let go of my hand and let me punch you!"

The bastard, who had previously raised a single eyebrow when she had attempted to hit him was now giving her double-eyebrow.

That made her pause.

Hana had known Itachi for years, and so was better-versed than most when it came to reading his so-called "expressionless" face.

Sure, Itachi's expressions were subtle, but when you were able to pick-up scent clues as well, most Uchiha became a lot easier to read. Of course, they knew that, and so tended to employ scent-masking jutsu once they had reached a certain level of proficiency, but since Hana had known Itachi since they were in the Academy together, she had had time to figure out what each micro-expression meant.

Single eyebrow, she had expected. Single eyebrow raised tended to indicate surprise. Depending on how much it was raised, and the angle Itachi's head was tilted at, single eyebrow could mean everything from "Huh, alright, you have my attention" to a flat "what the fuck do you think you're doing."

Hana was well aware of this, and so she had been more than a little irritated. Itachi had been home for _days_ and he had neglected to tell her that he was alright. She knew that he had a habit of secluding himself when he was injured, so a long time ago, when they had been on a genin team together for a season before Itachi had been promoted, she had made him promise to come and see her after missions, just so that she could check on him.

Itachi had originally tried to be a male about it, but she had worn him down. Inuzuka were nothing if not patient. It came of being a clan of hunters. You followed your prey until they were tired, frightened, and making mistakes, and then you pounced.

So when she had seen single eyebrow, she had been insulted. _He_ was the one who had broken their deal.

Double eyebrow though… double eyebrow was something she had _not_ been expecting.

When both eyebrows were raised, Itachi was genuinely taken aback.

And Hana could not think of a reason why that would be so.

"Come on," she said finally. "You owe me barbeque."

"I… do?" Itachi said, obviously lost.

Kami, what the hell had happened to him? Hana had heard a few rumours, and the word "brainwashing" had featured, but to her, this looked more like amnesia.

"You skipped out on the bill last time, remember?" she said, instead of asking him what the hell was going on.

"I… did?" Itachi's confusion did not seem to be diminishing, but his tone was mildly sceptical.

Hana nodded, baring her teeth in something that was decidedly _not_ a smile.

What the hell was going on here?

If it was anyone else, she would think that he was faking ignorance to blow her off, but this was _Itachi_. He never bothered with that kind of ploy. Normally he was _reliable_, to the point that this sudden scattered confusion was…

Disturbing.

If she didn't know better, then Hana would think that this was an imposter, but she knew that was ridiculous.

The rumours said that Itachi had been debriefed by a Yamanaka and an Aburame (and Hana had reason to suspect that these rumours were accurate, because otherwise members of both families would have objected most strenuously, to ensure that if a mistake had been made, it did not reflect back on them). Especially if it was the pair she suspected, (likely, because it was known that the Hokage was on rather good terms with Itachi's terrifying mother,) there was no chance that someone who wasn't Itachi would be able to get past them. Assuming she had not walked it before, the Yamanaka mind-walker would have been briefed on the "feel" of Itachi's mind (in terms that made _no_ sense unless you were a Yamanaka – Hana had dated one a while back, and she had tried to explain what walking through a mind was like, and Hana had sudden complete empathy for how others must feel when Inuzuka tried to explain a scent profile,) and the Aburame's kikai would be able to taste Itachi's chakra.

"You got called away for an urgent mission when we were half-way through our food," she reminded him, and saw his hands relax very slightly, which told her that he had accepted her explanation. However, there was no accompanying dawning light of remembrance in his eyes. Itachi had accepted her explanation because it made sense to him, not because her words had allowed him to retrieve the memory.

"You really _don't _remember, do you," she stated. "You don't even remember why I'm angry with you right now."

Itachi inclined his head in agreement, and Hana ignored that he was suggesting that she get on with it.

Hana could not believe that she had to do this. Itachi normally had a mind like a steel bear-trap baited with cyanide-laced honeycomb and armed with exploding tags.

For her to actually have to _remind_ him of something…

Hana caught the glint of despair in Itachi's eyes and decided that she needed to move this conversation forward. Itachi didn't need scrutiny just now. (Not from her at least. He would be getting enough scrutiny for several lifetimes from the rest of the village, _especially_ his mother. Uchiha Mikoto made Hana's mother _Tsume_ look downright laidback when she was in pursuit of a goal, and Tsume was known for being "dogged" even for an Inuzuka.)

So, in true Inuzuka spirit, she decided to throw him a bone, so that he could start grovelling.

"You made me a promise, years ago, that you would always visit me after missions, so that I could check if you were alright," she said, watching his face closely.

Well there was an "_oh shit_," expression if she'd ever seen one. She caught his sidelong glance, and could tell that he was trying to figure out what to say to her.

Eventually, it seemed that he settled on something. "I'm sorry," he said.

Huh. Now that she had _not_ been expecting. Uchiha were not known apologising.

Though Itachi at least had almost always been at least polite, even before they had become battle-forged comrades (as opposed to just comrades, which was what every other nin in Konoha was until they had been on missions together – people you would die for, as opposed to people that you would trust with your life).

"…What have you even been _doing_ since you came back?" Hana demanded. "You look physically fine." She had a theory, but she wanted to see if he would confirm it, or if he would try to slither out of it. She wasn't sure which one would bother her more.

Itachi sighed, and Hana was taken aback. She had _never_ heard Itachi sound so _tired_ before.

He looked her in the eye, and told her, "I've been taken off duty, pending psychiatric assessment."

_Holy shit he actually admitted it._

Hana gaped.

As long as she could remember, Itachi had always been a little… _touchy_ about the topic of mental health. (One too many "jokes" about the Uchiha family insanity, she supposed, especially after what had happened to Fugaku.)

To hear him sounding so… resigned about it…

"Kami Itachi, what did they _do_ to you?" she demanded, unconsciously echoing words he had heard more than once since waking up in this bizarre world.

Itachi let a bitter chuckle escape his lips, and Hana's worry only increased.

"I'll tell you over barbeque," he said.

Hana nodded. "Fine. Your shout, since I got the last one," she insisted.

Itachi just shrugged slightly, and started walking towards their favourite barbeque place.

Behind him, Hana was torn between smacking him in his stupid calm face, and grinning that at least in _this_, Itachi was acting normal.

Typical really. All Uchiha were notorious cat-people. (Some of them even had cat-summons, in case the impression needed any reinforcement).

Graceful, aloof, sadistic, sarcastic…

And Itachi was revered amongst them as some kind of prodigy, so he was _extra_ Uchiha-like.

No wonder he drove her up the wall sometimes.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14:

Itachi could feel the eyes on him, and it made his skin itch.

It was unfortunate that Hana had confronted him in a public place like the front of the Academy, but since it had been obviously spontaneous (it wasn't that Hana was incapable of scheming and manipulation, it was more that she generally didn't bother when she was off-duty… at least, that was assuming that the Hana he remembered from when he was 13 hadn't changed all that much in four years, and that the Hana from this world wasn't all that different from his one, and damn it, he really needed to stop making assumptions about these people because he had no way of knowing what of their experiences would be different enough to change their behaviours, especially around himself…) Itachi couldn't hold it against her.

Still, he was uncomfortably aware of Nara Shikaku dropping his son off, watching him through lazily half-lidded eyes, of the Hyuuga retainer not facing him, but standing as though daydreaming, and of various others, some subtly, some blatantly (especially the children from Sasuke's class, but some civilians and older ninja who were too well-cemented in their good reputations within the village to bother with tradecraft when they didn't have to were just as obvious,) but all watching him like he was a target.

He refused to acknowledge the stares, and spoke to Hana as though he was unaware of them. He knew that she was focussed only on him, and wondered what it must feel like to be able to relax that much, to trust one's own village to the point that one wouldn't bother to keep track of who was watching, weighing, judging when one was at home.

Itachi couldn't remember if he had ever been able to do that. (Even amongst his family? Especially amongst his family. He was the Uchiha Heir, the "pipeline connecting clan and village" and then finally, "the one suspected of Shisui's murder". The fact that he was also apparently attractive or something meant that even when people didn't know who he was, unless he was under a particularly thorough disguise, he _never _escapted scrutiny.) He supposed that some might think that was a bad thing, but it had come in too useful for his survival again and again over the years for him to ever really relax his vigilance.

(Though honestly, the first time he had worn a big hat and farmer's clothes to get close to a target, and had hidden his face with a thick scarf, he thought he had an inkling as to why Kakashi had always said that masks were extremely comfortable.)

It was _so strange_ seeing Hana again, especially in the context of her being happy to see him. He had no frame of reference for the "promise" that his other self apparently made her in this world- he wondered when that had happened, and what had triggered it. He considered his options, and decided that it might be a very good idea to convince Hana to throw a party amongst their old comrades. If he could subtly encourage them to reminisce about things, at least he would be able to start getting a bit of a frame of reference for things he should know, and things that he _needed _to know.

But to start with, he was going to need to get Hana relaxed and unsuspicious. Her demand for barbeque was thus fortuitous. He would have to pause soon, to look at something, to ensure that she took the lead to "their favourite" barbeque place. It had been simple enough to point himself towards the restaurant district and walk like he knew where he was going, but he needed her to take the lead soon so he could maintain the illusion.

It was also fortunate that Itachi had found where his other self had stashed his cache of money (there was a lot more at the bank, but any ninja who was silly enough to keep all of their money in one place was just _asking_ for trouble,) because otherwise it would be a little embarrassing to explain to Hana why exactly he would be unable to treat her after all. He _could_ always stiff her with the bill, but he wanted her onside, and ducking out of paying twice in a row, especially if one of those times was on purpose was certainly _not_ a good way to keep Hana onside.

Itachi didn't really have all that many social skills that didn't involve extracting information or keeping from insulting his team-mates to ensure team cohesiveness, but even he knew that basic one.

Itachi was wondering if he'd have to get a rock in his sandal to get a good reason for the pause in, when suddenly the two of them were interrupted by a girl in a way-too-tight cut-down kimono with purple hair that Itachi didn't recognise.

"Itachi-babe! It's so good to see you!"

Itachi blinked.

Oh hell.

This was awkward.

He glanced at Hana out the corner of his eye, and was half-relieved to see that she apparently didn't recognise the girl either, judging by how flabbergasted she looked.

The wind changed, and Itachi was suddenly hit with a blast of over-scented perfume that practically screamed _JASMINE_. It nearly made _him_ sneeze, he couldn't imagine how bad it must be for Hana.

Fortunately, he didn't need to come up with a brush-off that wouldn't get him into trouble later if he actually _did_ know the woman, because Hana (he was starting to really _appreciate_ Hana) asked the question that Itachi was thinking.

"And who the fuck are you, exactly?"

The woman executed what she probably thought was a cute pout, but which came out more like a hungry pug's expression.

"Oh Itachi, you didn't tell her about little old me? I'm Murasaki Keiko." She attempted to twine her arm into Itachi's but he stepped back in instinctive horror.

Oh Kami help him, she was a fangirl. A fangirl that his other self had possibly slept with, judging by how smug she seemed. Itachi cursed inwardly, wondering just how drunk his other self must have had to be to encourage a woman like _this_. Or maybe his other self just had really, _really_ trashy taste. Itachi decided then and there that it was fortunate that he had been given a blood-test at the hospital, because if he had had to go in to get himself tested for sexually transmitted diseases that he could not remember earning, he would have been mortified.

And from what the med-nin had said, his bloodwork was clear. Thank Kami for small favours. And now to ensure that the repellent woman went away and never came back. Cover be damned, he refused to be involved with… _that_.

"And why would I tell her about you?" Itachi asked flatly, as he continued to step away as the woman continued to try and touch him.

At this statement, Hana went from looking flabbergasted to curious.

Murasaki's pout grew more pronounced. "B-but, _Itachi_, we had that wonderful night together!"

Itachi was not happy to have his worst fear confirmed. Well, second-worst fear. His worst fear had involved a long-term relationship, which would have been a serious problem. He might have had to apply judicious amounts of genjutsu to sort _that_ particular nightmare out.

"And what was wonderful about it?" he wondered, softly enough that she might think that he did not mean for her to hear that.

Hana, with her Inuzuka hearing, of course heard him loud and clear, and looked like she was barely resisting snickering.

Itachi sighed. "Look, I'm sorry, uh… Mushigaki was it?" he said, hoping against hope that it had been a drunken one-night stand so that he could use that to explain why he had no recollection of the event.

The pout dropped, and was replaced by a furious glare.

"Don't you pretend you don't remember me in front of your girlfriend, Uchiha!"

Hana actually snorted aloud at this point. "Oh, he wishes."

(Itachi was relieved that that possibility was off the table. As a good friend, Hana could be invaluable to him. As a lover, well… the situation right now was such that it would have been impossible for a lover to not notice that Itachi suddenly had no recollection of their relationship, and he _really _ didn't want to deal with that level of drama.)

Murasaki ignored her and continued, "I know you know my name- you certainly called me by it often enough when you were escorting my father's caravan to Grass last spring."

Oh thank Kami and all the spirits. Itachi was going to have to go burn incense at some temples after this, because he _knew_ he was not this lucky.

"Ah, mission," Hana said, her expression for Murasaki one of realisation and almost-pity.

"What? What's that supposed to mean?" Murasaki demanded shrilly.

Hana gave Itachi a speaking look, and he knew he had to handle this at least somewhat tactfully, or he would be in trouble.

He sighed. "I apologise if you thought our night together meant anything more," he carefully didn't include any details in his words, because the last thing he needed was to reference any events that might not have actually happened or give her (or Hana) any ideas, "but it was necessary for me to complete the parameters of my mission. It was nothing personal."

"B-but I don't understand!" Murasaki wailed. "You were so nice and polite to me, and you held my hand, and asked me about my problems, and then you held me until I fell asleep, and it was, it was…"

So. Much. Incense. Itachi was going to buy as much incense as he could carry, and burn it at as many shrines as he could think of. Because this? Itachi had to make a strong effort not to show the sheer relief that his other self had not slept with this woman. And this was why he needed intel, _fast_, to nip issues like this in the bud. It was a shame that he had never been the diary-keeping sort (in either world- he'd searched every possible place and come up relieved, frustrated and resigned when he found nothing), because that kind of intel in advance was the kind he would _kill_ for right about now.

"Wait, wait, wait, so let me get this straight," Hana said, her tone gleeful. "Your 'wonderful night' involved a glorified sleepover? Did you and Itachi braid each others' hair? Kami, girl, the way you were talking, I thought that you'd slept with him or something, although honestly, this makes a lot more sense."

The girl blushed, and along with her purple hair, it made her resemble an eggplant.

"_What!?_ What kind of lady of the night do you think I am! I will go to my marriage bed chaste!" Murasaki screeched.

"Oh sweetie," Hana's expression was torn between amusement and sympathy. "So you're that kind of civilian, huh? Well I'm sorry to say it, but you never had a shot with him. You don't have the right… equipment," she waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Behind her, Itachi blinked. Did she just say…?

Murasaki apparently didn't immediately get the message that Hana was delicately (for her,) trying to get across, as her brow wrinkled in thought as she attempted to find the meaning in Hana's words.

Murasaki's thinking face was considerably more attractive than her attempt at a cute pout, but Itachi was nonetheless relieved when the ryo dropped.

"Wait, you prefer men?" she demanded, turning to Itachi.

Sensing a possible end to this horrible incident, Itachi nodded jerkily.

Frankly, he would have admitted to having a taste for the fresh heart-blood of purple-haired babies if it would get this girl to _go away_.

Hmm. Maybe that could be the back-up plan.

"Oh," Murasaki said, deflating.

"Apologies if I lead you on," Itachi said calmly.

"N-no, that's okay," the girl said with a slight sniffle. "So I guess you're going to reject the marriage contract my father was going to offer?"

Oh sweet Amaterasu.

"…" Itachi tried to think of a tactful way to say what he was thinking, but fortunately before he could start laughing hysterically, Hana stepped in.

"That would be a 'no', sweetie," she said, not unkindly. "Now, Itachi and I have somewhere we have to be, so if you'll excuse us…?" Without waiting for a response, Hana grabbed Itachi by the elbow and drew him away, walking quickly.

As soon as possible, she pulled them into an empty training ground.

And then started laughing so hard she nearly fell over.

"Baaahahahahahaha oh kami my _sides_!"

Itachi looked on, torn between amusement and mortification, before he sank down into a squat and put his face in his hands. If he was a different person, he might have been crying from sheer relief.

"That," he said flatly, his words half-muffled by his hands, "might have been the most awkward conversation of my life."

"Oh, I gathered, believe you me," Hana chortled. "Your 'I can't remember you' act was so good that you even had _me_ fooled. For a second there I thought you might have had a drunken one-night stand with her or something."

Itachi raised his head from his hands, and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh? But I only sleep with men, remember?" he said, deadpan.

Hana snorted. "Sorry, it was the first thing I could think of that would save her ego and get you out of that fix, and explaining to her that you're equal-opportunity with your lovers was very much _not_ going to convince her to leave you alone."

Well thank kami _that_ was the same in both worlds. It would have been more than a little awkward if he had discovered that his cover had different sexual preferences to him- and all things considered, despite how embarrassing that incident with the Murasaki-girl had been, at least now he knew.

"Still, _a sleepover_? What were you doing, trying to extract intel from her?"

Itachi shrugged. He honestly had no idea, and he had _never _tried that method before for information extraction. He supposed however that it made sense. He could fake charming when he needed to, and could see how that might have backfired with a girl like that, considering how she had looked at him.

"Mostly trying to distract her," he replied vaguely. It could even be true.

Hana snickered. "Well I can see that it was a little _too_ effective. A marriage contract? You're lucky that the Uchiha Clan is loaded, well-connected, and that Mikoto is able to terrify the Council into leaving you be. Otherwise you might be stuck with _that_."

Itachi nodded with a light shudder. He had been thinking along the same lines. The girl might be perfectly nice, he supposed, and maybe she might be even pretty under the trying-too-hard, but she had been so _civilian_ that it burned.

Hana grinned at him. "I'm impressed though. For a second there I thought you were going to channel your cousin and shunshin your butt out of there, leaving me to pick up the pieces."

"I was trying to figure out what was going on," Itachi said in all honesty, "because I couldn't think of anything from out interaction that would have given her _that_ idea." Strictly speaking in a sense true, since one couldn't think of what one didn't know, but Itachi knew that was splitting hairs.

"I suppose that that's reasonable," Hana replied. She concentrated for a moment, and then nodded. "Right, I can't hear or smell her anymore, so I think the coast is clear." She shook her head. "Though honestly Itachi, I thought you knew better by now than to encourage fangirls."

Honestly, Itachi agreed. If he could talk to the other Itachi just now, then he would be rather blunt with his assessment of his other self's judgement.

Honestly. Holding her as she fell asleep?

That was practically _begging_ for trouble from a fangirl.

His other self was an _idiot_.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Fangirl crisis averted, Itachi followed Hana, and was delighted to see that "their" favourite barbeque place was actually one he could remember going to. The shop next-door to it was, however, not familiar to him at first, until he realised that it had the same name as a little place that had been well off the main drag in his memories. Ichiraku Ramen. He wondered what might have changed to make them more prosperous in this world.

Once inside through the beaded entryway, the two of them were quickly seated at a corner table with its own grill-plate. Hana took charge and quickly ordered all of their favourites, along with a small bottle of sochu for the two of them.

Itachi was a little surprised that she wanted to drink this early in the day, but supposed that this was probably some attempt to get information out of him. Liquor did tend to loosen his tongue slightly, so he usually didn't indulge.

He would have to be cautious- Hana would notice if he drank none, but he should still be able to surreptitiously "lose" about half of it if he was careful.

Before the friendly interrogation could resume, a familiar voice called out.

"Itachi-kuuuun~! I'm so glad that you're back in the village!"

Itachi looked up, and was mildly surprised to see that the person greeting him was Mitarashi Anko.

Well, that was what his expression said.

Internally, he was swearing.

Of all the people in all of Konoha, why the hell did he have to catch the attention of _this_ murdering psychopath?

(And considering who Itachi had been spending time with since the Massacre, he was well-acquainted with a high standard of murderous psychopath, and so did not use the term lightly.)

"Soooo," she said, drawing the word out, "when are you going to take me on that date?"

Itachi considered it fortunate that he had not been consuming anything, for if he had been, he would have sprayed the liquid across the table.

"Date?" he nearly squeaked. (Nearly. He was a not-exactly-proud member of the Uchiha Clan, and Uchiha did _not_ squeak. A very close observer may have noted a very slight widening of his eyes, but otherwise, Itachi's expression remained neutral.)

Anko's bright smile dimmed, and she pouted. "Awww you forgot? I'm hurt."

_Fuckingfuckwhatthefuckohkamiwhy…_

"You promised to take me to the Uchiha outfitters with that family discount of yours, remember? When you lost that IOU in the poker game two months back." Anko continued, blissfully unaware of the internal panic attack she had caused. She pulled a piece of paper out of her cleavage and waved it in Itachi's face, and he could see something that looked suspiciously like his writing promising usage of his discount at a weapons store owned by one of his second-cousins.

Itachi resisted the urge to place a hand to his chest as his heart-rate started to ease. He had always promised himself that he would never get involved with a woman scarier than his mother. He had only vague memories of Anko from back in the day, soon after Orochimaru's betrayal of Konoha, but he had heard… stories from some missing-nin who had run into her in the years afterwards. Suffice to say, some of those stories had made _Kisame_ turn paler than usual, and that was saying something.

On the other hand…

"Actually, could I ask a favour?" he said blandly.

Anko tipped her head. "_You_ want a favour?" _from me_ was the unspoken tagline to that sentence.

Itachi nodded. "Yes. From both of you actually. I'm out of shape, after my… experience, and I would appreciate sparring partners."

Anko and Hana both looked at him weirdly.

"What?" he responded.

"_You_ want to spar with _Anko_?" Hana asked him like he was crazy. "You're only a chunin, she'll kill you!"

"Hey!" Anko protested. "I can pull my punches!"

Hana rounded on her. "Oh yeah? What about Joshin Tatsumaki?"

"Bitch called me a whore."

Hana considered that for a moment, and then muttered something about people committing suicide by psychopathic jonins.

Anko did not seem to be bothered by this, so Itachi ignored it.

Mostly because he was a little startled.

He was… seriously a chunin here?

_Seriously?!_

Sasuke had said as much before, but he hadn't thought anything of it. Sure, his _official_ rank back before had been chunin, but that was because he had been recruited into ANBU. It was an understood that as soon as he had gotten out, he would be automatically promoted, should he wish, especially since he had been a captain.

This body didn't have an ANBU tattoo. It had been one of the first things he had noticed, but he thought that that might explain somewhat why there were still so many Uchiha running about alive. If he had never been in ANBU, then Danzo would not have been in any position of authority over him (though Itachi would not have put blackmail past the man…) and so he would not have been able to order Itachi to execute his clan for the good of Konoha.

(He still needed to figure out what had actually happened in this time line. He knew his father was dead, but he had no idea what the circumstances had been… was it even connected with the planned Coup? But no one looked sideways at the Uchiha, so probably not, and Itachi had yet to notice anyone significant missing from the ranks of the alive. Why were they alive? Why was cousin Obito and Shisui alive? Itachi didn't know, and he couldn't help but wonder, even as he was _so glad_ that they were still around…)

But if he had never been in ANBU, then what the Bijuu Balls was he doing still as a chunin? What the hell had his other self been _doing_ with all that extra time from not having to run covert ops and assassinations, sitting on his hands?

Itachi had noticed a bit of a… lag in many of his jutsu when he had been escaping the Oto base. He had thought that that was because he was tired, beaten up and nearly out of chakra, but what if…

The thought was galling to have to even contemplate, but…

What if his other self wasn't as strong as Itachi was?

Itachi couldn't imagine why that would be so.

Well. Perhaps he had underestimated how much conducting covert ops in ANBU and avoiding hunter-nin and sparring with the other members of Akatsuki…

Oh.

Oh. Obviously.

Shit.

Small wonder this body wasn't as strong. Without being forced to adapt to constant life threatening situations for the better part of a decade, it only made sense that this body had not been trained as hard. Nothing like imminent death to provide motivation for honing reflexes and chakra control.

Still, it was a little… annoying to realise that he had gone from being an S-ranked threat to being a B-ranked one, at the outside.

On the other hand…

Itachi would need some time to consider the implications of this information.

All of these thoughts had flashed through Itachi's head within the space of a few moments, so Hana and Anko only noted a somewhat odd expression during a brief pause before Itachi formulated an appropriate response to their collective disbelief that he wanted to spar with Anko.

"I was captured once. I have no intention of being captured again," was all he said, keeping his expression carefully schooled.

Hana blanched, and but Anko merely nodded in comprehension, and didn't ask if he was sure. Itachi was unsure what they thought they were reading from his expression and his words – he had merely stated facts, as far as he was concerned – but since the interpretation had caused him to get what he wanted, their agreement, he decided for now that it was irrelevant what they thought of him. He could gather more data and decide whether it was an impression he wanted to change or cultivate at a later time, but for now, the most important part was getting this body up to scratch.

"It will probably be a while before I'm in shape enough though," he admitted with a hint of irritation.

Hana thought that he was referring to getting over the effects of his captivity, but Anko wondered. There was a certain look in Itachi's eyes that she had never seen before. She had not often had much to do with the quiet Uchiha, since she generally was only fond of quiet people that she could rile up or embarrass, and Itachi was infamously almost apathetic to almost everything that wasn't his little brother or his few friends.

Still, in the few times that Anko had encountered Itachi, he had always struck her as having a certain zen-like calm.

This Itachi though… Anko had heard rumours that his mother Uchiha Mikoto was Upset, and that Shunshin Shisui, known to be Itachi's closest friend as well as his relative, was stalking about like a particularly speedy thundercloud.

She was starting to get an inkling why.

Because this Itachi, no matter how he hid behind his stone-faced façade, was quite blatantly _not_ in a state of zen-like calm. Anko had worked with enough Uchiha over the years to know how to read between the lines of their practised reserve, and she knew that it was all in the eyes. The other Itachi had been, if not intimidated, then at least wary of her, and respectful of her skills.

This Itachi though… he looked _driven_ and _haunted_ in a way that reminded her of a veteran at the end of their tether. It reminded her of…

Anko smiled widely, and said that whenever Itachi wanted to spar, she would be more than happy to beat him into paste.

Then she went straight to one of her old team-mates, a man who worked with poisons, and a man who had married a Yamanaka.

He would know what to do, or failing that, his wife would know what to do, and he would know what to tell his wife so that she took Anko's concerns seriously.

She found him working in the still room, crushing seeds. She seemed to recall that the poison made from these was the base of a sedative that was enough to put a mark out for three days.

He didn't bother to look up, but he greeted her, calmly continuing to crush the seeds. She didn't take offence, she knew how he was.

She explained the situation, and her team-mate, the man with the dark-blonde hair and the glasses, about what she knew, what she had observed.

"He looks just like _he_ used to, Nobuo, before he started to become reckless. Before he went off on that mission that everyone knew was…" suicide, Anko didn't have to say. Nobuo knew as well as she did how their late team-mate, Shigami, had fallen.

It had happened a long time before that last mission.

So when Anko said that she saw the same look in another's eyes… especially with the rumour that Itachi was not going to be allowed back on duty until he could pass the psychological baseline test, and what _that_ implied…

Nobuo knew that this was serious.

"I'll pass the word to the right ears," Nobuo said, looking at her, though the way the light hit his glasses, it was hard to see the expression in his eyes.

Anko nodded, and left.

Nobuo returned to grinding his seeds, and considered the information he had been given. He wondered what it was that Orochimaru had been trying to accomplish with the Uchiha.

No matter. Nobuo would pass on what Anko had said to those he felt needed to know.

Whoever was handling Itachi's case would be one, and Nobuo knew if he asked his wife Kuchinashi, he would be able to find out fairly easily. He even had a good excuse now, to find out.

So yes, he would pass on Anko's message.

Both to the people she thought needed to know, and someone he knew she would be devastated to hear he was still in contact with.

Their old sensei would no doubt be a little upset that the Uchiha was apparently a bit suicidal.

Nobuo shrugged a little to himself.

He didn't know what Orochimaru wanted with the Uchiha, but either way, he was pretty sure that his sensei at least wanted the moody little chunin to be within his grasp before he breathed his last.

...

_A/N: Nobuo means "faithful man". And he's not really an OC. If you look up Kabuto's Sensei on Narutopedia, you'll see that he's actually genuinely canon. I gave him a name and a specialty to flesh him out, is all._


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Itachi rolled onto his back, breathing heavily, and scowled at the sky.

He was a _lot_ more out of shape than he had thought. It was _mortifying_. In the original sense of the word, because if he had ever been this out of shape when he was Missing, then he would have been dead years ago. Even with the significant handicap of terminal lung disease, at least his _muscles_ and _chakra control_ had been at their peak.

The fact that he currently _didn't_ have terminal lung disease meant that there was no excuse. Not for the first time, Itachi wondered what his other self had been _thinking._

Sure, Itachi admitted to himself, he _was _in better shape than your average chunin (and oh how that rankled,) but in his previous life he had been _S-rank_, there had been _flee on sight_ orders when it came to some of the punier villages' bingo books. Being less than at his absolute best set his teeth on edge like someone was scraping two rusty kunai together and grinning madly.

(Honestly, some people just had _no_ class.)

Though Itachi supposed that it wasn't _all_ bad. He figured that with his current skill level and crap fitness he was probably somewhere around tokubetsu jonin level, at the worst. And he knew for a fact that he could probably take almost anyone that had known his previous self, because (as anyone who had encountered the Uzumaki Naruto he had met before knew,) the element of surprise was a sadistic _bitch_.

True, he'd only have so many opportunities to use that until word got around (ninja gossiped worse than civilian housewives, though most of them called it "intelligence gathering and counter intelligence") but still, the point stood.

He knew that there was at least three people watching him, but he couldn't really bring himself to care. He was ostensibly on his home turf. He was allowed to train. He hadn't pulled out any of his cool jutsu (though he would never call them that aloud), and hadn't even let his Sharingan out. He figured showing how many push-ups, pull-ups, laps and kata he could do with a few chakra control exercises thrown in for kicks wasn't exactly going to arouse suspicions.

(Little did he know, but the very fact that he _was_ pushing himself to exhaustion was causing more than one eyebrow to raise. The reasons for it would be quietly and hotly debated, and the conclusion that most would reach would be mostly erroneous- that he was training so hard to forget his trauma. The latter when it happened was really more of an added bonus, rather than Itachi's intent.)

A few minutes later, Itachi rolled back to his feet, and started to stagger back to his apartment. He desperately needed a shower and a drink of something refreshing and full of electrolytes (probably not in that order) and he needed to do both before he picked Sasuke up from the Academy.

Sasuke probably (definitely) didn't _need_ Itachi to pick him up from the Academy, but Itachi didn't exactly have anything better to do, so he figured he would do it anyway. His little brother would be happy to see him anyhow.

It was naturally, when he had only got about two more steps when his Kage Bunshin decided to pop itself, and Itachi was suddenly hit by a barrage of information that nearly made him sit right back down again.

The good news was that his clone had outdone itself, and had read not only Itachi's file, but also the files of a number of other people. (Itachi was privately appalled at what that said about the level of security in the Records Library.) Itachi, like many other Uchiha, was "blessed" with an eidetic memory, (a very handy thing if one wanted to actually use the Sharingan to its fullest capacity, but it meant that Itachi's nightmares were always in full technicolour and with surround sound,) so that was a fair amount of information to assimilate.

He stood still for a moment or two, blinking, and attempting to process what he had just learned.

On the one hand, he now knew the bare-bones details of his shinobi career. It was about what he had expected from what he had gathered – apparently in this universe someone had interfered (he suspected either his mother, the Hokage or both) and ensured that he was not allowed to graduate the Academy early. He had done a wide variety of missions, that were mostly C-ranks with a few B-ranks thrown in, a few rare A-ranks from when the intel had been bad. Apparently he had once been offered ANBU ("coincidentally" after a mission that he had done with Kakashi's team, that no doubt had been at least partly for evaluative purposes, and how ironic that he had proceeded to do the same thing in both worlds, buying Sasuke his mask from that little market stall, though from what he remembered the actual mission parameters had been different).

His file was marked with comments that seemed to average out to "plenty of potential, but no ambition", depending on whether those assessing his performance were trying to suck up to the Uchiha Clan, were neutral, or hated them on principle. Itachi wondered how much of that had to do with the fact that (reading between the lines) apparently in this world, the previous owner of this body had not been forced to be the living embodiment of Fugaku's ambition.

And speaking of his father…

Now he knew how his father had been killed.

To his complete shock, it had been one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist.

That was information that had come rather out of the left field, as far as Itachi was concerned.

Whatever he had suspected, it hadn't been _that._

At least it wasn't Kisame who had done it, (though Itachi wondered what it meant that he was actually relieved about that – he highly doubted that it was a good sign, whatever that meant).

No, his father's killer was a psychopath that Itachi had thankfully never had the misfortune to be in the presence of, named Kuriarare Kushimaru.

Itachi _had_ heard of him of course. Even if Kisame had not been the type to constantly tell old war stories that included detailed descriptions of his previous comrades, like any ANBU Captain, Itachi had been well-acquainted with Konoha's Bingo book.

Kuriarare was known for his cruelty – he and his comrade Munashi Jinpachi had been the two members of whom Kakashi had called back in his ANBU days "the heartless pair" (and in those days, coming from Kakashi, that was really saying something).

Well, Itachi couldn't say much about Munashi, but _apparently_ Kuriarare _might_ not have been as entirely heartless as advertised.

Well, for a given definition of not heartless. A twisted romantic might think that Kuriarare's heart might have been involved when he had (and Itachi's clone had read and re-read the passage of the report, and then checked for genjutsu, because _what the actual fuck_) apparently announced to all and sundry that he was going to challenge Fugaku for Mikoto's hand.

The report had only given the blandest of facts. Kuriarare had been in the village during the chunin exams, playing bodyguard to the Mizukage, since (Itachi was a little shocked by this) there had been talks of a peace treaty. Kuriarare had challenged Fugaku, saying it was over Itachi's mother. Fugaku had been incensed, arrogant, and had accepted. Kuriarare had proceeded to show a transfixed audience the fact that the Sharingan didn't mean jackshit against kenjutsu if the wielder was fast enough, especially when it was kenjutsu wielded by someone who was Seven Swordsmen Calibre.

The fact that Fugaku had no doubt been more out of shape than he would be willing to ever admit, having not been an active-duty shinobi for a good five years by that point, unless one counted riding a desk at the Police Department as active, had certainly not helped him.

After Kuriarare had eviscerated Fugaku, apparently Mikoto had walked up to him with a smile (and here the handwriting of the report had become suspiciously shaky) and promptly stabbed him right in the heart with a poisoned senbon needle.

Itachi admitted to himself that he could see that happening.

He was however, suspicious as to _why _a random Kiri-Nin had decided to fixate on his mother.

Also, the timing being 'coincidentally' near when he remembered the Uchiha Massacre occurring…

That was _extremely_ suspicious.

Add in the little tidbit of how Kuriarare had apparently just let his mother walk up to him and stab him, without showing a hint of suspicion until it was _far_ too late…

Itachi was considering the facts as he knew them, and his gut instinct was rather insistent when it screamed that all signs pointed to Kunoichi.

He supposed that most sane people would consider it to be a really bad thing to be _impressed_ that one's mother had decided to kill one's father for what was no doubt the good of the clan. The fact that she had managed to neatly remove the incriminating evidence (re: anything that Kuriarare could have said) in a way that would terrify those unfamiliar with how such things worked and issue a pointed statement to those who _were _ in the know…

That kind of manipulative ruthlessness was, Itachi knew, why no one ever crossed his mother if they had a healthy survival instinct.

Maybe one day he would actually confirm his suspicion, but Itachi had a feeling that he was probably better off not knowing about whatever his mother had done to ensnare the senses of someone like Kuriarare.

For one thing, plausible deniability.

For another, some things one just _really_ did not need to know about their parents.

Itachi shook his head hard, and decided that what he needed to do now was get mind-numbingly drunk.

He then discarded that thought immediately. It wouldn't do to get loose-tongued and tell someone something unfortunate.

The sake still called to him, but Itachi forced himself to turn a deaf ear. He had enough of a headache already without the hangover that he would no-doubt thoroughly earn himself if he started drinking now.

Itachi sighed. And he had that _fucking_ therapy session in two days.

He'd wonder what he had done in a past life to deserve this kind of drama, except, well, he remembered what he supposed was his past life (did it count if he'd apparently started again as a teenager?), and if massacring a good half of your family (even if it was out of loyalty to one's Village) wasn't enough to create the kind of Karmic debt guaranteed to fuck him over for the rest of eternity, then some of the shit he had done in ANBU and for Pein no doubt certainly hadn't put him in Kami's good books.

If it wasn't for the fact that he had a Happy Sasuke to balance things out, then Itachi would suspect that he was, in fact, in a circle of hell.

And speaking of Sasuke…

Itachi started moving again. If he still wanted to be washed and rehydrated before he picked his little brother up, he was going to have to get a move on.

...

_Not sure how I feel about this chapter. But hey, an update! That's good, right?_


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17:

Sasuke used to resent his brother.

"Why is it that you are only at the third kata? At your age Itachi was at the eighth! He was a year younger than you when he gained his Sharingan!" was a typical sample of things his father used to say to him.

When Sasuke had been five years old, he had wished that his brother was less strong, less capable, if only so that he would not forever be in his shadow.

That had only lasted until the first time his brother came home injured from the Academy, from a "too-enthusiastic spar" (Sasuke was told, but he didn't believe, and his mother's eyes had smiled approvingly at his instant scepticism,) between Itachi and someone who should not have been in the village (the last part Sasuke believed).

Sasuke had clung to his brother, angry and scared that someone had dared to hurt him. He might not always _like_ Itachi, but the first rule of being an Uchiha, (the _real_ first rule, not the one about keeping Clan business within the Clan, or the one about not showing off private emotions in public, or the one about stealing as many jutsu from enemies and rivals and friends who wouldn't be _too_ horribly offended as possible…) was that the Clan must be strong, and strength came from the Clan being united against those who would stand against it.

Or, as Sasuke had once heard Shisui say when he thought Sasuke couldn't hear:

"Fuck with one of us, and you fuck with all of us."

There was a reason why the Konoha police force was so effective, and though some looked at the Uchiha with suspicion, no one ever doubted their embodiment of the core value of the Will of Fire that was Teamwork.

(Sadly for relations with the rest of the village, most of the Uchiha also internalised the rule that Uchiha was synonymous with pride. Diplomacy might have run a lot more smoothly if the average Uchiha was just a little less smug and condescending when considering those outside the Clan.)

Of all the things that Sasuke had ever learned about being an Uchiha, loyalty to the Clan was the one thing he had most embraced.

Being Itachi's brother however, was something he never had to learn.

Even if he didn't always _like_ his brother, it didn't mean he didn't love him in that bone-deep way that transcended any petty rivalries or disagreements they might have. And there was also the part of Sasuke who couldn't help but idolise his perfect elder brother, even as he despaired at ever showing their father that he could be just as good, and thus just as worthy of their father's attention.

(As time passed, the hero-worship outstripped the jealousy, as Sasuke began to understand the kinds of pressures that being their father's favourite brought, and just how much his brother shielded him from the worst of their father's temper and ambitions. Fugaku wanted what was best for the Clan, and was more than willing to sacrifice his sons for it. Unfortunately for him, Mikoto disagreed that sacrificing their sons' happiness was going to create any material good for the Clan, and that was where their disagreements started… Sasuke had a few dark suspicions about the circumstances of his father's death that he was more than happy to never ever dwell on, because once the initial shock and grief had died down, he realised how much more Itachi _smiled_.)

Itachi of course, could read Sasuke like a particularly simple text-book, and tried to reassure him.

"Don't worry about me. Foolish little brother, don't you know that I'm perfectly able to look after myself?" Itachi had smiled, and poked his forehead left-handed, as on the right side he had a broken collar-bone from that enemy attack that no one would tell Sasuke the details of.

Sasuke overheard soon after (practicing eavesdropping was an important ninja skill, so if people were going to have secret conversations, they should really do it somewhere where a small child couldn't hide quietly in the next room and listen through the thin rice-paper screen dividing them) that the enemy shinobi who had broken Itachi's collarbone was laid up in a quiet cell with two broken arms and two broken legs, all of which having occurred _after_ Itachi's collarbone had been broken.

Sasuke was glad, because so far as he was concerned, people who were willing to hurt _his_ big brother deserved what they got.

(Sasuke was only five, and knew that this meant so far he was too little to avenge his brother's hurts. But he would grow, and train, and train, and then, and then…)

Sasuke never stopped worrying, but after that time, he was glad that his big brother was able to take care of himself. It didn't even bear thinking about what shape Itachi would have come home in, (if he _had_ come home, a dark whisper from the back of Sasuke's mind made sure to point out,) had he been even slightly a less capable shinobi.

And Itachi always tried to make time for him, to teach Sasuke himself skills that Itachi had picked up, skills that he thought would keep his little brother alive. It took years for Sasuke to really realise the latter- at the time he thought his big brother was just teaching him cool jutsu that would make him an awesome ninja- but later he realised the underlying practicality, and the hero worship that he had already lavished on his elder brother only grew stronger. There was one thing that Sasuke knew without question that he could depend on, and that was that his brother loved him, and would do anything in his power to protect him.

Even hold himself back from promotion.

The first time their father was thwarted in getting Itachi graduated from the Academy early, Sasuke was startled at how unbothered Itachi seemed. Even in front of their father, faced with the scathing _disappointment_, he seemed incapable of pretending that what he _really_ wanted to do was to graduate and become chunin like The Hatake Thief (as he was known in their house).

Itachi just nodded insincerely and didn't bother to pretend he was upset about the lack of promotion whilst their father ranted and raved.

Sasuke had originally thought that their mother agreed with their father, but after a while he noticed how whilst her smiles seemed sincere when she nodded along, even though his mother was the best when it came to convincing _anyone_, when she took him along with her so that he could play with Naruto whilst she talked to "Dear Minato" as she called him, she never even broached the subject of Itachi being promoted. In fact, the one time the Hokage brought it up in Sasuke's earshot, she _thanked_ him for making sure that Itachi was able to have "a proper childhood".

Sasuke was only a little kid then, but he wasn't stupid. He knew that that meant that his mother didn't want Itachi going off and getting himself injured worse, getting more of that awful look in his eyes than he already had.

Now he was almost a genin (just a few more months, then the exam, and it was going to happen,) and the awful look in Itachi's eyes had suddenly got at least fifty times worse.

Whatever had happened on that last mission… it had changed his brother, and not for the better.

Sasuke didn't know what to do.

Sakura, despite being known to be one of the smartest in the Academy had the worst advice: "Why don't you just give him some space?" she asked, innocently.

Sasuke had winced. The very _last_ thing Itachi needed was more space. Giving Itachi space meant Itachi would have more time to get lost in his head. Sasuke didn't know what was in there, but he knew that it was bad, and knew instinctively that drawing Itachi out of his head and into focussing on the world was important for his brother's wellbeing.

Naruto, despite being a complete idiot, had had the best advice: "But he smiles when you're there, right? So maybe you should just keep doing that."

"Doing what?" Sasuke had asked.

"Being there."

From what Sasuke could tell, that really was the best thing he could do. Itachi clearly didn't want to talk about whatever the hell had happened to him. Sasuke didn't understand, but on the other hand, he had read and listened enough to learn that sometimes, when a mission went bad, talking was _not_ what the ninja wanted to do, and pushing them was the opposite of help.

On the other hand, being there, and reminding Itachi why he was wanted, needed, required…

That was something Sasuke could do, and he did it as much as he could. When Itachi needed more space than living with their mother would allow, Sasuke was more than happy to move into Itachi's apartment for him. When Itachi suddenly had the odd need to escort Sasuke to and from the Academy despite the fact that Sasuke had been walking quite happily there alone for the better part of three years, Sasuke didn't so much as blink, merely exhibiting happiness that his Aniki wanted to spend time with him.

And he was happy, really. It was nice to see so much of his brother.

He just wished that awful look would leave Itachi's eyes, wished that he would _relax._

Sasuke knew that that was unlikely, but still, he hoped, and did whatever he could to let Itachi know that it was okay, that Sasuke still loved his big brother, that no matter what Itachi had seen (or done) Sasuke would still be there for him.

It should probably not have surprised Sasuke as much as it did that his teacher at the Academy, Umino Iruka figured out that he was worried about something.

"What's the matter, Sasuke?" Iruka-sensei asked, when they were alone, after Iruka had asked Sasuke to stay back to talk about his trapping test results (which were good, but not stellar – clearly he needed to pick Naruto's brain before the next test happened).

Sasuke had initially hesitated, but then decided that he might as well speak his mind. Iruka-sensei had a good reputation when it came to keeping confidences and generally just _being there_ for his students.

"Itachi-niisan came back from a bad mission. He's hurt," Sasuke said, not bothering to specify the type of hurt. He knew that Iruka was almost definitely aware of the gossip that was running through the ninja ranks about how the Uchiha heir had snapped.

"Ah," was all Iruka said in reaction to Sasuke's admission. "Would you like to talk about it?"

"No," said Sasuke flatly. It wasn't that he didn't trust Iruka-sensei, more just that he didn't feel that talking about his feelings would solve anything.

It never had before.

(Well, there was those times he had talked to Naruto about things, and Naruto would make some random comment that would put things in perspective, but that was different. That was _Naruto_, who defied logic or logical categorisation with no small measure of glee.)

Iruka just sat there patiently, looking sad, and Sasuke started to feel vaguely guilty.

(Later, he would realise how he had been _had_, and would be resentful and impressed at how his teacher had used advanced interrogation techniques against Sasuke with such ease.)

"I'm just… worried about him," Sasuke blurted out. "He gets this, this _look_ on his face, like his world has ended, and he can't quite believe what he's seeing. He looks at me like he thought I was dead or something, like I'm something unexpected and incredible, and it's…" it almost physically hurts to admit it out loud, "really scary."

"Have you said anything to him about this?" Iruka asked calmly.

Sasuke shook his head. "No. Kaa-san said to let him be, and even if she hadn't, I wouldn't know how to say it to him."

"Say what, exactly?" Iruka asked in that voice that made it clear that he was asking not because he didn't know, but because he thought Sasuke needed to say it out loud.

(Sasuke wasn't sure if he loved or hated that.)

"Come back, Aniki," Sasuke said, without really thinking about the words meant.

Iruka merely nodded.

"I don't think I should say that to him," Sasuke said, when Iruka didn't comment.

"I agree," Iruka said. "But it's important that you know that's what you want to say."

"Is it?" Sasuke asked. "It's going to make it harder to not just say it to him." He shook his head. "I think that might make him worse, Iruka-sensei."

Iruka made a movement, and if Sasuke hadn't known better, he would have thought that it was some abortive move to give him a hug.

Iruka opened his mouth to say something further, but suddenly, Itachi was in the doorway.

"Aniki!" Sasuke exclaimed. "You don't have to pick me up!"

Itachi just shrugged, his expression as carefully blank as it ever was, but he still poked Sasuke in the forehead like he always had, just because he knew Sasuke hated it.

Itachi nodded respectfully to Iruka, but didn't ask why he had kept Sasuke back after the rest of his classmates. Instead, he merely started walking, obviously expecting Sasuke to follow.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Sasuke-kun," Iruka said almost pointedly.

"Yes Iruka-sensei," Sasuke replied absently as he trailed after his brother. Itachi seemed even more tense than usual (since he had come home), and he seemed to be ignoring Sasuke's chatter about his day at the Academy.

So Sasuke tested it.

"…and then Sakura said to me, 'the Akimichi Clan have decided to go on a collective diet, the Yamanakas are cutting their hair, and the Nara are feeling motivated.'"

"And then a pig flew," Itachi answered smoothly.

"Huh, so you were listening," Sasuke retorted.

"Of course," Itachi said, ignoring Sasuke's tone. "I always listen to you."

Sasuke didn't dignify that with an answer, but he was sure his expression eloquently said what he thought about how true _that _was.

Itachi snickered.

Sasuke huffed in irritation.

He might love his big brother Itachi, and be worried about the sad look in his eyes...

But that didn't mean his brother wasn't sometimes a complete and utter jerk.

Itachi poked him on the forehead.

"Come on, you must be hungry after your long day at the Academy. I'll buy us something tasty."

Sasuke's annoyance levels lowered slightly.

Only slightly.

Jerk had poked him in the forehead. _Again_.

"Only if it's omusubi," he replied.

Itachi rolled his eyes.

"Fiiiiine," he said. "But we're stopping at the general store for pocky afterwards."

"How old are you again?" Sasuke demanded.

"Old enough to kick your ass, shrimp."

"Hey!"

It was times like this, Sasuke reflected, that he knew his brother was eventually going to be okay.

Even if it was _infuriating_.

"You wait Itachi, I'll train hard, and then _I'll_ be the one kicking _your_ ass," he retorted.

"Pft. You'd have to wait until I was dropping dea…" Itachi trailed off, his eyes suddenly dark.

Sasuke waited for him to finish, but he never did.

"Aniki?" he prodded, worried.

Itachi breathed in slowly, in, out, and then he visibly shook himself.

"Never mind. Let's just get some food."

Sasuke did his best not to watch Itachi too suspiciously, but knew that Itachi knew he was watching.

He decided to be blunt.

"You're not okay, are you Aniki," he stated.

Itachi chuckled darkly.

"No, no I'm not," he admitted. But then he turned and smiled. "But don't worry Sasuke, I won't let anything happen to you. I'll protect you, otouto."

Sasuke smiled back, but he couldn't help but wonder.

Protect him from what?

What was Itachi worried about?

Sasuke had a bad feeling about all of this. So he did what he always did when he felt powerless.

"Aniki?"

"Yes Sasuke?"

"Could you teach me a cool jutsu?"

His brother's immediate proper beam was worth the gruelling training session that Sasuke knew he was about to be put through.

"Show me you're ready, otouto, and I'll teach you whatever you want."

Sasuke grinned.

And this was why Itachi was the best big brother ever.

Itachi poked him in the forehead again, and Sasuke rubbed his head and scowled.

Even if he was a total jerk.


End file.
